party girl era

He was right. I felt like a fallen angel gracing the earth that night.

Last night I traced the light fine lines that have settled under my eyes and remembered a time when I thought I’d be young forever.

When time stretched out in front of me as a limitless expanse in which anything was possible. When I would wake up with dewy skin and never wash my face or use skin care or makeup unless I was going out-out.

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I don’t remember ever classifying myself as a party girl. I did not go out looking for parties. They actively came and found me and swept me off my feet. But I do remember being the only one of my friends in my Psych class who would come rolling into class on Monday still a little bit high from acid and mushrooms and ecstasy.

Except for one of the few guys who took a Psych minor alongside a journalism major. He and I would share secret glances and smiles and pretend to pull triggers to our heads in a gesture that meant “kill me now”. We are still distant friends to this day, though I would have to look him up to remember his name.

I was a good girl. I didn’t do drugs or get drunk. I was innocent and naive and just trying to figure out what on Earth I was supposed to be doing on this planet.

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Six months earlier I was working as a receptionist at a tiny film editing studio in London’s Soho. We mostly made ads for B&Q and other ads, that’s where we made our money. Like a men’s cologne that was directed by a famous director who would rack up so many lines of coke at every meeting during production that by the time the ad was done both he and the main actor were so bloated that they didn’t resemble themselves anymore.

Every morning on my way into the office I would greet the transgender junkie that seemed to live in an empty access to an abandoned store as she flicked needles onto the ground nearby. My co-workers said it was mostly methadone because she couldn’t get heroin.

I was young and without life experience and found it both scary and sad.

That winter, cold and determined to do something different with my life, I decided to study Psychology in the hottest place I could find. I found a university in Far North Queensland, Australia, set in a small jungle edging the Great Barrier Reef. At the time I still had a permanent residency visa for Australia on account of my mother immigrating there when I was a child. I applied, was accepted, and booked a flight to begin my new life.

My boyfriend at the time was a manager of a pub in Old Street. One where all the lawyers and barristers would go and get drunk after work. In the very pragmatic way that only teenagers can, we agreed to part ways when I left.

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I started my four-year degree committed and high-spirited. I would apply myself. I would study hard. I would complete and hand in my assignments early.

One day my friend’s friend and his friend called me and asked if they could use my car park to sort out their car that had broken down. I said yes, of course, and was delighted by the excitement of young men and cars and who knows what might happen. One of those men asked me on a date and a week later we were a couple.

Slowly I discovered that my new paramour was a bong-swilling pot-head which confused and unnerved me. Mostly, because it felt like there were always three people in our relationship. Him, me and weed.

Later I discovered that this is a common trait amongst addicts.