I was never
much of a big party girl, although, there were those college years–what I can
remember of them anyway. But for the most part, I would take a small circle of
friends over coffee than shots of tequila at Coyote Ugly any day. So, unless
there's a special occasion or a close friend is in desperate need of a night
out to forget her latest breakup, I will most likely stay in my pajamas
watching back to back episodes of The
Vampire Diaries all night, than don a cocktail dress until the wee hours of
the morning. The problem is, I work with nearly a hundred different people in
the city and although we don't all work at the same time or even on the same
days together, you get to know these people and become very attached to them
because they're all you have here. Many of us are far from our families and the
things we were familiar with and although some of us are from right over the
bridge, they come here in need of a change and a chance at a new and better
life than what they had to start with. We're all very much like starved orphans
wandering the city, in search of a place to call home. So when one of us has
something going on, it's hard not to be a support system or a fellow advocator
for them, because otherwise, it can be a sad and lonely existence in the big
apple. However, it's just not physically or financially possible to go out for
every occasion. So I try to go to those events where more than one person is
promoting their career or celebrating something or other and where most of us can
gather together at once. Then there are the holiday parties. There's just
something about these parties that I just can't resist. For one thing, they're
never overly wild and crazy like a twenty-first birthday or a housewarming
party, (which happens too often. We like to change apartments like the
seasons). There's a little more class and restraint with holiday parties that
allow people to dress up without being one dance away from having the boobs fall
out or the hairy chests making a world premier. We can look good, be merry and
remember most of the night afterwards...for the most part.
Last night, a
lovely group of friends from work decided to throw a Christmas cocktail party
at their new apartment. The party had started at eight thirty in the evening
and I had intended to be there around that time, nine thirty at the latest, but
after squeezing into one outfit and peeling out of another, I found I had
nothing remotely suitable to wear that still fit me. I nearly called it quits
and slid into sweat pants after going through my entire wardrobe. Oh, now I remember why I don't go out, my
closet looks like a ninja lives here. After the Thanksgiving feast I ate
last month, I can still see where the stuffing went too. Dang carbs! After nearly two hours of trying to gussy up the hair
and trying to look like I know what I'm doing with makeup, I happened to look
at the clock and it was ten o'clock. Dropping everything, I settled on the
go-to dress when desperately out of other options...the little black dress, a
woman's best friend.
Stumbling down
the stairs while trying to figure out where I was going on my cell phone, I
realized that the apartment I was heading to sat well over thirty blocks away,
and sadly, the fastest way to get there was to walk. I nearly popped open the
bottle of wine I had with me just to keep warm and entertained while I pressed
through the long haul. When I finally found the inconspicuous abode, I though
for sure I was in the wrong place. It was the darkest spot on the block and the
windows facing the front of the street were all dark. Where am I? No, I was at the right place. When I rang the bell and
got buzzed in, a wave of relief washed over my cold face and sore feet as I
swung open the door. Inside the apartment it looked as though I had just stepped
into a red carpet event and it took a minute for me to recognize anyone. Who are you people? The girls I see
dressed in frumpy black attire every day now looked like they had just walked
out of Glamour magazine. And the guys...they looked like they belonged in GQ.
Too bad more than half of them were batting for the other team. What a room! I'm sure glad I didn't go with
the sweat pants.
You know it's
been far too long since you last went out with the crew, when everyone stops in
mid conversation to drop their jaws when they see you walk into a room.
"Oh my God! Marcy is here? I can't believe it. I just can not believe
it." It was a mixture of surprised happiness that so many friends were
excited to see me, but it also made me aware of how anti-social I had become
too. I really do need to get out on the town and spend more time with people.
My cat is getting sick of looking at my face anyway. She needs her space. If
someone had told me ten years ago that I would be living in New York City,
standing in a room full of some of the most talented singers, dancers, artists
and actors I've come to know, wearing a little black dress at a Christmas
cocktail party, I would have rolled my eyes and laughed in their face. Just ten
years ago, I was drowning in a life that was going nowhere and working hard to
pretend that I was. At the time I was in the fourth year of a relationship that
had ended bitterly before the year was even over. I had but one close friend I
hardly had time to see because I was working two dead end jobs while attending
a community college, studying a major I wanted nothing to do with, and I was
living in my childhood bedroom with my parents in the next room. Then, like a
stack of cards, my life had suddenly fallen away, one card at a time. With one
bold decision, I ended up moving to New York City and I was now standing in
this apartment, smelling the pine of a chubby blue spruce decorated in
shimmering silver garland and sparkling red balls while having adult
conversation about life, work, the pursuit of happiness and laughing at the
follies of our daily lives. Who could have imagined such a dramatic change? Not
me.
Making a round
about the finely decorated living room of the apartment, I saw not only the
faces I often see throughout the week, but there were also some old friends who
had moved on to do other things. Although it had been nearly a year since I had
looked into some of their eyes, it was as though not a day had gone by. Across
the space, like a shining star, I spotted one of my favorite people in New York
and also one of the hosts of the party, Charming Chad (I like to call him). And
like two planets being pulled in by gravitational force, we bee-lined across
the room and embraced like a cosmic collision. Chad, a tall and slender man in
his mid twenties, with a flare for the finer things in life, is one of the
classiest people I have ever met. Having lived in France for some time,
studying fine art and the French language, he stood out in the crowd donning
his red bow tie and sparkling green and back sweater like a character in one of
Jean-Luc Godard's New Wave films. Only he could get away with a look like
that.
As the night
carried on, the merrier we all got and the louder our excited voices seemed to
get. A few times our hosts had to shush us like unruly school children and we
would cower in shame, sip our drinks, then slowly slide back into our
conversations until the volume red lined again not a few minutes later. Their
neighbors had to have hated every one of us by the time the party broke up at
two a.m. For some of us, the night was still young and although I'm usually
fast asleep by this time and I had to work in the morning, I was already out
and had to head back another thirty blocks in the same direction everyone was
going anyway so, I thought, I might as well stop half way home and warm up with
one more drink with my friends. Poor Chad, as classy as he is, the man's
slender frame was not built to sustain high volumes of alcohol. What grace he
kept in holding himself together for one more round with the rest of us.
However, had the night lasted any longer, I probably would have seen a
different side of him–the upchuck Chad side.
At an Irish pub
where many of us who live in the neighborhood had often found ourselves in the
past, after a rough night or a day off in good weather, the five of us sat at a
high wooden table by the bar listening to bad country music and sipped on pints
of beer. What felt like minutes were really two hours later and before we knew
it the lights were turned up and our cups were dry. Where does the time go? I'd have asked Chad that question, but I
don't think he even knew where he was by then, let alone the time of day. Sure
was great to make those memories and bridge the gap of change with experiences
we could enjoy together. Days like this will not last forever, like everything
in life. It's inevitable that this too shall pass. However, I would rather live
and lost than to never to have lived at all.
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