hazelnut steamer

9:15 pm, the house is quiet and still.

As a young woman in my early twenties, a night spent at home was an imposition. I was extroverted, and not particularly self confident, and felt abandoned and uncool if I spent more than just a few hours on my own. I dreaded the quiet of my living room, convinced my friends were out having wild adventures without me. It did not help that this was basically true - my closest friends at that time were a group of guys who lived in an apartment that was right across the street from our favorite bar, and any night could turn into an impromptu party. I was sure to miss some inside joke or dramatic encounter. Plus, there'd be girls there. Smart, pretty, thin girls. Girls who could see the amorous potential of whichever guy was the subject of the revolving series of unrequited crushes I nurtured for the better part of a decade over these guys. Worst, they'd be Drunk Girls, which made up for quite a bit of whatever was lacking from the Smart and Pretty departments. I, of course, would be drinking too, but never Drunk. Smart and Pretty, but never Thin. I'd be the one they did not go home with, who they would call tomorrow. I told myself I was getting the better deal. I definitely thought I had to choose.

It was convenient for me to like these guys, to imagine our friendship blossoming into something more - something safe, because it came from real feelings and would hold none of the risk or betrayal of a regular relationship, but also something exciting, because there'd be secret passion, romance, and let's face it, s-e-x. We called it "friends with benefits" and acted like it was a great idea, the best of both worlds, a win-win. What a spectacular lie.

I had been falling for this lie since I was fifteen years old, when my best friend and I decided to "share" the guy we both liked, and what started as my first serious chance at falling in love became a competition to see who (me) would go the furthest (hand job) the quickest (matter of days), and nearly destroyed the most important relationship of my adolescence (her, not him) and got both of us dumped a few weeks before prom (Total Fail). My takeaways from that first experience were that, A, I should have gone further, faster to secure my place in the front of the line, and B, dramatic, complex emotional entanglements equate to Real Love. I was able to refine this view through a series of failed pseudo-relationships and hook-ups over the next decade. It took nearly as long for me to realize that sleeping with my friends made me miserable, that sex outside the protective boundaries of a publicly acknowledge, committed relationship was risky, ruined friendships, and made me feel, look, and act batshit crazy. This, I've come to learn, is not a sexy look for me.

It is 9:15 pm, ten years later, and I am sitting in front of the computer with a steaming mug of hazelnut milk mixed with honey. My children are asleep; my husband watches football and folds laundry in the other room. The house is quiet and still. I am not crazy. These are miracles.