18th Amendment ... the End of an Era

When most people here 18th Amendment they think of Prohibition.  For me 18th Amendment has another meaning.  I think of a bar on Pennsylvania Avenue in SouthEast DC.  A bar that I am sad to say closed its doors this weekend.    

18th Amendment is hallowed ground.  It is where so much of my first years in DC were lived.  For a long time, it was the place where every exciting moment of my life took place.  Every Thursday many Hill staffers made their way to 18th to sing karaoke and drink cheap Miller High Life.  Many of my friendships in this city were made at 18th Amendment over a song, a High Life, or a late night shrimp poboy.  It used to be great, I used to be great when I hung out there.  

The Harper of 18th Amendment was bold, sassy, and empowered.  It was in those walls that I did some of my very best flirting.  I made out with several cute boys there.  I danced even if no one else was because I wanted to.  I sang many terrible songs, with groups of friends, and didn’t care that my voice can make cats cry.  This is where I learned to shoot Jameson like a pro and realized that it was sexy to do so.   

It wasn’t all cocktails and good times.  Life hit me pretty hard a few times while sitting in that bar.  We were at 18th Amendment the night D told me he had a girlfriend.  After shit hit the fan, I sat at the bar and drowned my sorrows with Vicki and Deek.  The night several months later, when D got jealous, and told me he didn’t like seeing me with anyone else, the conversation that ruined our functioning friendship took place at 18th.  When I lost my job, 18th Amendment is where I went to drink away the disappointment.   

I haven’t been by in months; I don’t think any of the old group has.  Somewhere along the way, life happened.  We got more responsibility, and we had to give things up.  People grow apart, and the places you used to go together lose their luster.  I have thought about stopping by a million times, but something always seems to come up.  Never did I think that there would be a day that 18th wouldn’t be there. In my mind, Vicki would always be ready to pour me a shot and tell me that all my problems lie in my poor taste in men.     

I want to pay homage to one of the places that helped shape me and my life in this city.  If the walls of 18th Amendment could talk, I am sure they would have some great stories to tell, and several of them involving me.     

Birthday Blues

How is it possible to love your life and be so sad at the same time?  I guess it is the birthday crisis setting in.  I am going to be a year older next week - 26.  I love my life, but then I see the lives of people with whom I grew up or went to college, and their lives seem great too.  Completely opposite, but wonderful still.  They are getting engaged, married, having babies: what I always thought I would be doing at this time in my life.  

Living in DC, I wouldn’t want to be married right now, but you step out of this bubble, and you see people all around you moving forward in life.  In DC, we move forward with our careers, but our personal lives are stuck in college.  We are all stuck in a dating cesspool, where people hook up and have “complicated things”, but it is rare to find something real and lasting.  I chose to build a life in a city where everyone postpones love to a more convenient time.

Somewhere in the last three years, I have evolved into something about which I am not sure.  I have allowed myself to morph from this Marilyn sex symbol that I was proud of to “Momma Bear”.  When did I become the sensible, put together one?  When did my life become nothing worth writing about?  I have struggled over the last several weeks to come up with something to share with all of you.  There have been no exciting stores of sexscapades or outragous nights.  There have been no new crushes or the potential of falling in love.  I have become uninteresting.  

My reality at 26 is that I have 4 different dating apps on my phone, and yet not been on a date with anyone from them.  I haven’t been in a serious relationship in a decade, haven’t had sex since Valentine’s Day, and haven’t had good sex since Stefan.  

There was a time when I was vivacious, confident, and unwavering.  When I left college I had found a comfort in myself, and in many ways it is still there, but the voices of the frat boys are creeping back in.  I hear them calling me “Bee’s Fat friend” all over again.  I was thinner back then.  I would kill to be that small again, and yet I let so many boys define me in such derogatory terms.  I let my own self worth be based on a bunch of drunk frat boys who wanted to keep me their dirty little secret.  I tried to leave that behind me, but even my relationship with D painted me as the dirty mistress.  Keeping me at arm’s length, and playing my own insecurities against me.    

One of the biggest things I can be proud of in the past year, besides getting an amazing job, is walking away from D.  Looking back on my Quarter life Crisis (my birthday last year), it was predominantly because of my relationship, or lack thereof, with him.  It was like coming up for air for the first time in a year and half.  What I didn’t realize was, that as long as I was hiding behind my feelings for D, I didn’t have to face the reality that I was become less desirable.  I am the kind of pretty that only gay men and other women appreciate.  Well dressed, hide my flaws well, hair and makeup always done.                   

As I prepare for my birthday party, I continue to worry about all the details.  My private party in the basement of my favorite Hill bar now carries the burden of being epic.  I need it to be epic.  I need the excitement.  I need to be reminded that I am not irrelevant in peoples lives.  I have decorations, a playlist, and Anna is making the cake.  My dress is picked out, I am getting my makeup done, and my crash diet is underway.  Even though I am sharing the night with Chance (against his protest), and most people are coming because of him, I want a moment to remember.  

Birthdays used to be one of my favorite things in the world.  It is the one day (or week) that the whole world has to celebrate you!  I loved getting older!  I couldn’t wait until I turned 30.  Now I see them for what they are - milestones of broken dreams.  A reminder of all the things you wanted to do but haven’t been able to.  A warning that you are getting older but you aren’t getting any smarter or (insert adjustive of your choice).  I never thought I would have the birthday blues.  

I know that Saturday will be fun, not because I need it to be, but because all the people that care about me will be there to help me celebrate.  I will be surrounded by love and lots and lots of shots.  Yes, I might not be the sexpot that I used to be, but I’m not 22 anymore either.  And that is ok.  It is ok to age gracefully, and to do a little growing up along the way.