A Cure-All Tonic

It must be something about my connection with my friend Alicia, because after my trip to Hawaii, I experienced another love hangover.

Exactly like what followed her visit to Chicago this summer, in the wake of my vacation I felt unusually thirsty for creativity, for influence, for progress. For love.

The love part was quenched when my friend Allison made a trip down for a belated birthday celebration with my Chicago girlfriends. Sushi, a dive bar, and late-night pizza punctuated by sweet toasts, loud laughs, and too many vodka sodas to count. My friend Whitney shared a touching tradition from her college friends: Each person went around the table to say how I came into their lives and why they love me. I think my exact drunk words were: "You guys, words are my love language!"

As if they didn't know.

 

Allison brought me a kombucha SCOBY so that I could brew my own tea, the supplies for which I finally moved to Chicago from my parents' basement a few months ago. I'd been reluctant to bring them prior for the same reason I have yet to buy a coffee table or a real bedside table: Why acquire more things if I don't know how long I'll be in Chicago?

 

I missed making my own, and I cringed (as one does) when shelling out $4 every time I bought one in the grocery store. But still, it took me two years to bust out my supplies.

 

 



You guys, I do these things. This is my way. I drag some things out unnecessarily, and I will not listen to anyone who tries to impart wisdom or offer alternatives. Sometimes it's as if I need to make myself completely miserable in one facet of my life before something breaks, and I change courses.

 

 

Today I bottled my first batch of kombucha in over 2 years, my first since selling my house and moving to Chicago. That was five hours ago. I listened to podcasts with Henley at my feet, and I am still smiling.

 

 

I won't wait so long next time to do something I know makes me this happy.

 

 

 

The hangover is inevitable, whether it be love or otherwise. I'm going to do the living anyways.