One night to have it all

This one is about a night that almost felt normal.

Normal enough to feel dizzy and tell my witch that I just sang in front of people.
„I sang“, I am repeating myself, while it is freezing outside and I forgot my coat somewhere but couldn‘t care less. „I sang in front of people, just as I did on my last normal weekend.“ And I long for my drink to squeeze the last drops of alcohol out of the ice cubes around my straw, but I have left that somewhere else as well.
It looks like my collection of first times continues, at least for now.

So, this night I have to do it all.
I drank a bottle of wine before even leaving the house. I had trouble holding still while getting my nose poked to make it into our dark basement (here in Germany things are looking like a very dark winter once more, so we have to be fully vaccinated and tested to enter, oh and we also feel very bad for doing it). Once inside, I realize that everything tastes better with a shot of Amaretto in it. And oh! They actually have Cocktails that don‘t look too bad, so I need two Gin Tonic and two Caipirinha, of course. And of course, I always look a bit lost while waiting at the crowded counter after ordering, so the oldest and weirdest guest of that night comes over and whispers into my ear something about why I am smiling so obsessively and while doing so he spits onto my face and in that moment I actually think I have missed strange old man spitting on me and I laugh even more and wish him a lot of fun, only until I have to order my next drink, of course. And not to forget the shots of Jägermeister after I sing, because this night I also sing and after more or less roaring Patti Smith‘ „Because the night“, I spice it all up with these strongly alcoholic cough drops. Everything is turning. Everything is blurring out and I almost forget about my fear for the next months without seeing my children at work once more and without doing any of my work possibly leaving me with no income at all, and to escape my shame for taking this night to the limit, I type funny little messages into my phone. Suddenly, I want to make up with an ex, and I keep writing another friend about each and every single time I have missed him and probably scare the hell out of him with my suggestions including not wearing much the next time I’d call him, and at some point, I find myself laying on the freezing floor and when asked if everything was alright, I only laugh and nod. I am almost not able to think anymore, so tomorrow can‘t come. If there’s one thing I’ve learned, it’s to never trust tomorrow! To come, to not come, to not be cruel – in any case! Tomorrow sucks.

„You forgot something“, my witch reminds me while I‘m typing, and I‘m blushing.
Yes, I forgot to mention that I had not been singing in front of people that had actually wanted to see me because I was so good at it. No.
„It was a karaoke bar“, Layla giggled.
I had been here a few times without taking any closer steps to that stage.
I had been too shy. I had seen the other guests feeling completely relaxed between the counter being decorared as a shark mouth and the sculls on the ceiling and looking so fitting while holding the microphone and trying to sing with a lot of passion, and I could not get myself to try. My friends had asked me, I had looked up songs and had realized that I even knew a few of them word by word, but I had not wanted to try. I had been playing music for all my life. I had learned to sing and to play the violin, but in my late teens, I became awfully shy about anyone hearing me, so I stopped and have not started again ever since.

„But on my last normal weekend, I sang“, I tell my witch a tale she had heard far too often ever since she began visiting me while finally having lit a cigarette to replace my drink. „They got me drunk enough to sing, and I think I did a good job!“ I know that I have no way to ever prove this, but I dared to sing „Winter“ by Tori Amos the last time I had done anything with my friends before the pandemic, and it wasn‘t too bad! It had felt like a new beginning, like me finally getting over myself and better times to come. „Being locked up for years afterwards is just so fucking ironic, universe.“ I whisper the nicotine out into the night sky.

That‘s kind of alright that I got this night.
I have to taste it all, to feel it all. I want it all to leave a scar on me, and tomorrow to blur away. Look at me, spit on me, and listen to me, because tomorrow sucks.