I used to consider myself open-minded, but I wasn't. I judged people relentlessly and was constantly throwing insignificant faux paus in their face with hands covered in mud. Like the time I posted a picture on Facebook of a girl who accidentally messed herself when she was drunk. Little did anyone know about a year later I, myself, would get black-out drunk at a party with 40 people in attendance, start a fist fight with a guy, get my cousin jumped, get the cops called, and fall into a barb-wire fence to slash deep gashes into all four of my limbs. Not exactly the definition of classy. When I snapped into an interval of consciousness at one point, my 106-pound friend had my arm around her shoulder and was directing me away from the scene of the crime. It was dark and I could only see the blur of rushing minors everywhere, but what I heard has been ringing in my ears for three months now.
I overheard this handsome guy who's a year older than me say, "Ya, man, she pulled the same thing at my party" (which can be found here). I actually lost a good friend that night because she deliberately told me: do. not. start. shit. That's all. Out of all the infinite conditions, she gave me a simple one. Yet in my drunken stupor, I did the exact opposite. That's when I discovered I was that person: the obnoxious, sloppy, belligerent drunk. That's not fun. No one wants to be around that person. That's exactly how my dad acts when he gets wasted. It's ironic that sometimes we become exactly what we try so hard to escape.
When I was a junior in high school, my English teacher started class with: Janessa, come grab this. She was Italian, if that explains anything. You do what you're told. I got off the medicine ball and walked to her desk. When I was a foot in front of her, I caught a whiff of vanilla. She held out a tube of tooth paste and said, "Put a glob on the board." I did what I was told. I made a white, creamy, horizontal line on the white board. I turned to her. She held a popsicle stick out to me.
"Now put it back in the tube." I looked at the tiny opening and then at the thick streak on the board. I managed to get some of it in, but there was still a visible outline of white residue.
"You see..." she started in that New York accent of hers. "Sometimes you say impulsive, offensive things to people. And you can say 'sorry' until... until your eyes bleed, and, and even though you say you're sorry, there's always going to be the residual hurt that it was even said. There's no going back from it. Ever."
Yet here I am, three years later and that has barely sank in. Rapper Drake has a line that goes, "Better late than never, but never late is better."
I had a best friend once. She was my completely other half. We were the same height, had the same hair color, eye color, and body type. One of us would make a comment and the other would stare in bewilderment because she said the exact fucking thought the other was thinking. It happened all the time. But one unfortunate Saturday night, this party we were at got ratted on. Three cops entered the only door in a garage full of drunk, stoned, wild 17 through 21-year-olds. My best friend dipped and hid behind a dresser in a dark corner. I jumped into the back seat of the SUV parked inside and pretended to be asleep. I didn't fool the po-pos though. They dragged my ass out and slapped a good ol' m.i.p. on me when I blew a zero point nine. Fuck my life. They never found my friend. Some people ran. About eight of us got hemmed up. And I was mad at everyone. Every single one of them— the guilty as well as the innocent. I sent my best friend a Facebook message that said, "If you want to party, that's fine, but I just don't want to associate with you anymore." I was blaming literally everyone except the biggest damn culprit: ME.
I didn't speak to her for three months. When we reconciled, I ended up living with her over Christmas break, which was a solid three weeks or so. She was a sophomore in high school and I was a freshman in college. Not even two months after that, I wigged again and stopped talking to her because she wouldn't go to a party with me just because her boyfriend didn't want her to go. I even went as far as calling her an "obedient dog". If that's not the lowest of low, I don't know what is.
After spending 19 years in Coloraska, I decided to fly south to sunny Florida to start a new chapter in this thing we call life. With that said, I turned 20 in January and decided that I don't want to be the intimidating, confrontational Janessa I've been for so long. I texted my ex-bestie and explained how sorry I am for being the world's biggest douche bag. Her boyfriend had her phone at the time but said he would relay my message when she got off work. Shit, I started pouring my heart out to him and apologizing like crazy. He told me what his problem with me was and we both agreed to bury the hatchet. I was ecstatic! I was going to have this balance in my life again. The boyfriend drove to her work and showed her my messages. I looked down at my phone as I received a call from her 15 minutes later.
"Hey!" I said. There a pause of silence and then I heard an unimpressed, "....hi...."
More silence
"So... what's with this? I mean... why now?" she asked in an accusing tone.
"Oh, uhh, well," I sputtered. "Did you not read the texts? I'm moving in a few weeks and I just didn't want to have, like, bad air back here and stuff, you know?"
"It's just... last time you stopped talking to me, it took you a few weeks to apologize. This took a year," she pointed out.
"And, I was thinking about your tweets... And you know I just realized I was being a total psycho and I am just a huge dick," I laughed. Silence.
"Oh, well, I'm at work. I get off around 9:30ish so maybe we'll talk then," she offered and hung up. An hour later I ended up hanging out with her boyfriend and another mutual friend. He slid into my car and I started, "Uhh, she doesn't really seem interested in making up..."
"Yaaaaa," he replied. "I don't know. She's weird. I'll try to talk to her for you." I was seriously heart-broken. I'm Janessa. Like, THEE Janessa. I'm funny and outgoing. Why wouldn't someone forgive me??? The girl from the Facebook picture did.
And the guy from the story link? We went on a movie date with our best friends to go see "Catching Fire".
And the girl who I lost over the guy from the story link? We kicked it at that party where I blacked out.
In the big scheme of life, those are petty offenses. But hurting someone (twice) who you called your sister and who looked up to you? That would be where the tooth paste reference comes into play. Sometimes we say and do shit we just can't take back.
"So I asked Dustin a couple months ago why no one ever starts shit with him," I announced to three of my guy friends. "It's not fair! I never start shit with people! Well... sometimes I do, but like last June I apologized to Penny—"
"No, it's because—" my friend Austin started over me.
"No, last June I apologized to Penny—" I continued in a louder voice.
"No, no, no. It's because—" Austin yelled.
"You literally just apologized to me and my girlfriend for starting shit," Grabs laughed.
"I said sometimes I do. No, but last June I apologized—" I started again.
"No, Janessa. What you don't understand is: Dustin literally does not start shit with N E ONE," Austin laughed. I was dead quiet. I was so fucking pissed. No but sometimes people I hardly know end up saying stuff about me behind my back, I thought. Deep down in my heart, I knew what he said was the truth, and that's probably why it hit a sore spot. Karma came after me for being a bully to people who didn't deserve it. Dustin literally doesn't start problems so the Universe literally doesn't throw problems back at him.
So I remain to be in some people's bad graces. Ironically enough, it's the last place I like to be. Because although I radiate confidence, I secretly care about what so many people think about me. I want to be a better person— one that people aren't embarrassed to be associated with. Human beings change one thousand percent from day to day. I hope people believe that I'm not that person I was a yesterday, let alone one year ago.
"There is no sense in punishing your future for the mistakes of your past.
Forgive yourself, grow from it, and then let it go."
Melanie Koulouris
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