Not at the party
Belated HNY to those who celebrated!!
The end of the year is all about parties. Now that it’s January, I can look back on last month and say that, despite some good parties, the times when I felt most nourished, the moments when I lit up, I was not at a party. Instead, I was on a friend’s couch making adult Lego flower sets.1 I was on my own couch reading a book2 or FaceTiming a far-away loved one. I was in a neighbor’s kitchen in the early morning, watching soccer and gossiping over bagels. I was having an overdue catchup at the ice skating rink, on a solstice sunset dog walk, a solo evening ski.
I’ve been told in the past I can be “good at” parties; I’ve learned how to provide a fun night. Lately, that’s not where I want to put my efforts.
There was a time when I went to every party. I’d go out all nights of the week, staying in only once I was too exhausted from the past nights’ parties. Right before the first time I left New York nearly seven years ago, I remember complaining that I had too many friends, that I got invited to too many parties. Looking back, I realize how hard it was for me to say no, to not attend. Looking back, I’m also not sure how many of those people were genuinely my friends, or I theirs. We were just groups of people enjoying our youths, a.k.a. going to lots of parties, mostly for the good enough reasons of personal growth and possibility and also, perhaps at times, for the less good reason that we were terrified of being alone.
Before the years of going to all the parties, there were years I went to none. It felt that way, at least. My sociable 20s were largely a reaction to having spent my teens as a repressed recluse, medicating my under-diagnosed depression with sweets, then alcohol, and always with self-loathing. In my 20s I finally started to feel comfortable, maybe even attractive. So I went to all the parties, made up for lost time. Along the way I forgot what it was like before parties. I forgot that I could be good company for myself, no party needed.
Sometimes I wonder what is the point of a party. There are many different kinds of parties; no party is the same. But occasionally I still think everyone might know a secret about going to parties, about why parties are fun. And somehow no one thought to tell me.
There were times when I liked parties for the drinking: it was liberating to get buzzed and out of my head, to feel chatty. I’m not so interested in that anymore. There were other times when I went to parties to be noticed: I wore an Outfit, I flirted. The party was a success if I felt like I got enough attention or made enough new friends.3 That, too, feels like a relic from a past life.
There were times I went to parties because I felt I had to, because I’d told the host I would. I’ve learned now that, so long as the party has more than six people attending and didn’t require some expensive ticket or other unique placeholder, no one will care if I don’t go. It’s honestly worse if I go to a party when I don’t particularly feel like it; when my “aura” is “off,” when the only small talk I think to make with half-strangers is about my cat’s litter box woes, the broken child welfare system, or how much sleep I’ve gotten recently. Some people like those topics, sure. But if I’d rather be sitting at home alone or getting dinner with a close friend one-on-one, it becomes apparent that my heart isn’t in the party. I bring an energy into the room that is decidedly un-partyable. On those nights, I’m learning it’s better not to attend at all.
Maybe this development is simply the process of aging; the natural contraction after a period of expanding social worlds. I tend to think it’s something different, though. Something more like finally embracing my lack of social desire, my growing ease. My discovery that I’m good company, and the concomitant discovery that I’ve become more discerning about how to share my time, and with whom.
Some of this feels at odds with my stated desire to sink into community here, to be of service. Not attending seems a bit like saying no or being selfish somehow. But that’s the old way of thinking again, the inability to honor my needs before the perceived needs of others. Besides, not all gatherings have to be parties. I’ll find them, I have before. Like stumbling through the doors of a church intending to use the bathroom and hearing the choir mid-practice, lofty notes a-peal in the beams. Maybe that was a fantasy. Maybe it was real. Life has many parties, hidden in rafters, if only we know where to look.
Adult Legos are the jam, despite it being quite demeaning how they feel the need to brand them “adult” Legos. As if regular Legos aren’t adult Legos, too…
Leslie Jamison’s “The Recovering,” which I highly recommend regardless of whether addiction memoirs interest you. She’s brilliant!
It was almost never enough, though. Shocker.