These are the moments that I remember soonest, best, and most from the past decade.
Because it’s time to write one of these blog posts, of course.
1.) Can it be eight years since I lost my virginity? Yes! Yes, it can be. I turned 21, I had sex with a boy I thought I loved or maybe could love, sort of, even though we didn’t know each other that well, but we were dating and he was cute and it was a long-distance thing and it was my BIRTHDAY! The sex was super fun but also led me to believe that it is an easy thing to climax during vaginal intercourse. Sadly, this is not true for most human women, and not for me, either, as I would eventually discover. The boy went back to his home city. The last time I saw him, he confessed that he was in love with me. Then he threw up all over my bathroom. A couple of weeks later, he told me over the phone that he hadn’t meant it, and that he’d just been drunk. He never called me or wrote to me after that.
Four years later, I moved to New York City and happened to discover through a mutual friend that he, the de-virginator who I’d loved, lived there, too. I got his number and gave him a call. We talked for awhile, and he told me about the breakdown he’d had about a year after we stopped speaking. We spoke of mental health, and family, and art, and I reminded him of that time he’d thrown up in my bathroom. We laughed about that.
“So you said you loved me and then you said you didn’t, and then we never talked again,” I said.
“Oh, Sara,” he said. “Of course I loved you. And it scared the shit out of me.”
“Well, I am terrifying, as a person,” I said.
We laughed more and talked more and he confided in me some things that helped me understand more about the person I’d thought I’d known–well, sort of known. He was in a shaky place, but a seemingly good place.
We made plans to meet for dinner somewhere in Brooklyn that Friday. We were both excited about it, giddy like little kids with crushes.
On Friday, ten minutes before I planned to leave the house, he called me.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “I can’t see you. It’s just too intense for me. You represent–a lot of things to me. A particular place and time. I’m afraid of seeing you. I’m afraid it would be like a time machine and I’d freak out. I had to talk to my therapist about it because I got so anxious thinking of it. I’m really sorry. Again.”
“Okay,” I said. “I understand. Take good care of yourself.”
We never spoke again. I don’t know what happened to him. I don’t need to, either. He gave me exactly what I needed. That was enough.
2.) Eight years ago, I started taking Prozac, a drug that actually works really well for me and that enabled me to, believe it or not, lead something resembling an incredibly high-functioning adult existence. There were a few hiccups along the way, but taking Prozac was a huge step to becoming AGORAFABULOUS rather than agoraphobic.
3.) Waiting backstage with Sway Calloway at MTV’s “Total Request Live,” I watched Matthew McConaughey and Kate Hudson compete in a baby-diapering competition using baby dolls and Pampers. I wondered how exactly one follows these paragons of golden Hollywoodery with…Super Tuesday voting news. That was my job, for MTV News. Then I was informed I’d have to wait through one more segment, which involved a psychotically rabid Fergie fan getting a Fergalicious makeover and then…meeting Fergie live in front of the TRL cameras. I watched Fergie, a true professional, smile kindly as the truly insane girl beside her proclaimed her true love. It was terrifying, and left me with new respect for Stacy Ferguson. On the way out, I saw Martin Lawrence. He and Sway fist-bumped. I went outside to do some more reporting. It was cold.
4.) I stood onstage and peered out into the audience of graduate students at the fancy-schmancy International House student residence near Columbia. I was opening for comedians Kerri Louise and Vanessa Hollingshead at Women’s Comedy Night, part of International Women’s Week, sponsored by the United Nations and the Rockefeller Foundation. A friend of a classmate had gotten me the gig. I’d never done stand-up comedy before. Because I’ve bombed and been mediocre many times since, I feel perfectly fine and humble telling you that I killed. I did jokes about Farsi and Urdu and Hindi for future doctors, lawyers and scientists who spoke Farsi and Urdu and Hindi. That is what is called “knowing your audience.” I did 15 minutes and had the time of my life. I think at one point I pretended I was getting my pussy waxed. This particularly rocked the room. I earned $40 and got off the stage glowing. I thought that everybody laughed really hard every time you did comedy; that you got paid for every spot; that you always got $15; and that audiences were always sophisticated international elite students. This turned out not to be true. But I’m still at it, 3.5 years later, so something must have connected that night. Either that, or I’m just out of my fucking gourd. Or both.
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