I don't really want to be a queen

Inspiration can come in the strangest ways, like a surprise birthday party. My best friend had just moved into her home with her boyfriend. I hadn’t been to her house but finally made the drive. We stood in her kitchen and I felt like we were spinning, spinning faster than I had felt in a while. We had just started nursing school together, how did we end up having adult parties in houses that we are renting? How did we have friends that we could get together and bullshit around with? Why was I able to walk into a crowd of strangers I didn’t know and feel completely at ease? It rushed at me and I felt the familiar sense of panic; told me to run. My parasympathetic system was on high alert. screaming danger. I was a mess.

Then, I took a breath. My friend asked me, “do you really like it?” I released my breath and told her of course I loved it. It reminded me of my first house. It was quaint and homely. Even without much furniture. We made plans to have sleepovers and have more parties. I stayed and played Uno, or attempted to play Uno with some group of men, men is a generous word, they were boys. Boys that had apparently never played Uno. I just remember a lot of yelling and no cards moving from my hand. I remember I made a 7-11 run with one of the friends, he had a really nice car and knew how to drive it. We connected over a mutual experience. A breakup, that was more like a mercy kill. He told me about his theory and I laughed. The windows were down and I was just having a conversation with some random funny guy. It was amazing to feel the air whipping my hair around. Listening to another person tell me about their plights in relationships and know I am not alone.

We came back from that trip and I immediately felt overwhelmed. Nothing changed. I felt different. I wanted to grab my friend and go watch” Letters to Juliet”. I wanted to be anywhere but there with all those people. I finally made my escape, my friend didn’t want me to go. I truly wanted to just go lay down on her cement block firm as fuck mattress and sleep. This party was happy and it was an assault on my cracked psyche. I wanted to yell at them that this happiness doesn’t last so they need to enjoy it. I vaguely wondered if the feeling they felt was only for certain people, and maybe I wasn’t ever meant to feel like I actually belonged anywhere. I wanted to go home, to cry. My friend and I went outside to talk for a few and we made jokes about how we either hit certain milestones or we accidentally skip them or stay in place. She was making milestones. I felt stuck in cement.

I looked at her and realized I hadn’t loved someone as much as I loved her, in a long time. No matter what happened I had her in my corner and it was super nice to know that someone would be there. She again asked me to stay, she didn’t want to be around people she didn’t really know either. I just hugged her and told her I wouldn’t be any fun. As I drove home, I rolled the windows down again and I was finally feeling like I might get some of the glow from the feeling earlier. What I liked about the party was the decorations were minimal, so it wasn’t the decorations that made it special but the people. It was the conversation and energy. No one forced the party to be anything it wasn’t. Just people who all liked to be around each other, enjoying each other's company. A great moment. I wanted to find that feeling for myself, by myself. I wanted to know I could have that much love in a room and feel just as amazing because of it. I want to love freely.