I was really looking forward to the fourth of july this year. Being a Canadian in the US makes it kind of weird; Canada Day was never a huge thing back home. We’d acknowledge it, but that’s about it. But here, not only is it a big deal in general, but some friends of ours have a huge party every year. Plus the bank closes for the day, which means I got a full 2-days off for my weekend!

We had plans. However, things don’t always go as planned…

Here’s what I envisioned for our lovely fourth of july party: Set up a tent; Eat great food; Swim in a pool looking fabulous; Play games and have a great time; Have fantastic sex with my husband in our tent; Wake up and go for a great breakfast.

What actually happened:

Before leaving, discover that the air mattress Den has is a twin size, not a full. I have a fit.

After getting there I drank mostly lemonade with vodka, hoping that I would get as drunk without getting as sick as with my white russians – but they don’t taste half as good.

Didn’t go swimming at all, since it was too cold.

Mid-way through the night, go to set up the tent. Den says, “Honey, your friend didn’t loan us a tent. It’s a CHAIR!” I walk over to see a chair and think, WTF! I look in the back of the truck and there’s the tent still in the bag. (Later I discovered that he had grabbed BIL’s chair-in-a-bag.) So we got the tent up. But the too-small air mattress? Den couldn’t get it inflated for the life of him. He says it’s fine and puts some blankets down, I sit in the tent and cry. This is not going well.

After my time-out I re-join the party, one of the girls got me water and rubbed my back as I sniffled.

More drinking.

I end up crawling in the tent at some point later in the evening and passing out. Den joins me at some unspecified time later – neither I nor he remember him joining me in the tent.

I wake up at 5am with my hips aching so bad from sleeping on the ground. I ended up waking Den up, packing up all our shit, taking down the tent, and driving home before 6am.

On the good side, the effect of all that vodka+lemonade was only a bad headache that, with the help of some advil, I easily slept off. I woke up feeling great. (Den did not get off so easily.) Unfortunately that means it really is my beloved white russians that make me so effing sick. :(

On the bad side, it appears that the whole drinking-makes-me-have-so-much-fun days are far behind me. I feel like I just have so much sadness in me that drinking just taps into it. I think every time in the past year and a half that I have gotten drunk I end up bawling.

I know a huge part of it is me trying to re-capture the fun we had when we were dating, before we got married. We had some awesome parties, so much fun. There was no grief, no frustrations, no jealousy towards others… we were in love, and that was all we wanted right then. We were happy. I know that every year I try to re-create it those nights, but it never works out. Things are different, beyond what I can ever hope to control.

I just want to be happy again like we were back then.