Drinking in your 40's
Drinking in your 40's
So here’s an unfortunate fact about your life now that you’re in your 40’s: if you have more than one glass of wine you’re not going to sleep that night AT ALL. Forget alphabetizing the states, naming dog breeds, trying to remember the characters on Guiding Light in the 80’s or multiplying fractions in your head. Nothing is going to help you fall asleep. You’re going to be roasting ass hot, and this inexplicable heat will hit you in waves. You’ll whip your leg out of the covers, only to be freezing four minutes later and restart the process again. You’ll plod off to the kitchen and chug water. You try to remember which is it, Advil or Tylenol, that messes up your liver when mixed with alcohol (it’s both), and then you take the other one. Maybe you need to eat something? You don’t, but you’ll shove something in there. Something like stale Oreo thins (because they’re not fully-formed Oreos they lack all of the fat of the regular sized ones) and a handful of unwashed blueberries. Satiated, you’ll return to bed and promise to remember this fitful night the next time someone asks, “Is it rosé season yet?”
The thing is, you’re not drunk. But your post-fun body thinks you are! As you try to count up what you actually drank--good god, was it only two small-ish glasses of wine? Was it only two nearly-full glasses of wine? Was it only that chalice you found under your old bed that says “Josh’s Bar Mitzvah” full of wine?
Remember when you used to split a case of Schlitz with your roommate, pass out and wake up the next morning only to shotgun a drinkable yogurt and run a 10K? No? No, me either. I never drank Schlitz, even when I lived in Wisconsin. I did drink a sizable amount of other questionable things, but the next day usually involved resting luxuriously on the free couch we’d gotten from neighbors and watching 90210 reruns.
This is the thing with getting drunk in your 40’s--you can still do it! You can still stay out and party and hang with your younger, and cooler coworkers! You can! But guess what? You’re going to pay. You’re going to pay with two days worth of heartburn and a dull ache in your calves (what is that? What did you do when you were drunk, a trampoline aerobics class?). You’re going to pay with sleeplessness and a nagging tickle in your throat that will make you constantly insist out loud on the Metro, “I’m not getting sick, okay?!” And, where did that tickle come from? Were you sharing drinks with strangers? (probably)
You’re going to pay with a crick in your neck caused by your bed thrashing when you were trying to get comfortable and finally Go.To.Effin’. Sleep. And really, what were you thinking, that you could contort yourself that way and sleep? Are you a yoga instructor? Are you Pink, doing aerialist upside down flips on hanging silks in your bedroom? You’re not! And guess what? Pink would never feel the overheated liver rot you’re experiencing because she only drinks plant-based things* that you can’t pronounce without feeling self-conscious.
So. Just when you need to drink the most (the 40’s are laced with strategically placed events that require either a fully conscious, self-aware mental health state with well-developed coping skills, or the ability to consume and process alcohol to repress all of it), you can’t.
Well, you can. But you’ll pay. Oh, yes, you’ll pay.
*I just want to take a second to say that I know what they’re doing with this rebranding of vegetables as “plant-based foods”. Plant-based foods are vegetables. And fruits. So fruits and vegetables. In case you didn’t know and you wandered into a yeast-scented fast casual restaurant and someone tried to sell you a “plant-based rice bowl”. What’s happening there is they’re selling you rice and vegetables and trying to make it sound good without chicken on it.
regrets