I went on my first real date when I was 15 years old. I had such a crush on this boy. I’d met him on a church ski trip. I remember there was this really pretty dark haired girl on the trip too….and I could tell this boy liked her. As we all put on our ski gear at the slopes she pulled out a 70’s brown snow jacket with matching pants. (which you can buy on eBay now as cool vintage for $64.99). Amazingly you could hear an audible gasp from group as she put it on. I guess it wasn’t trendy:

And at precisely that moment….as I put on my brand new aqua and purple ski jacket….I became interesting to this boy. We were both great skiers so we broke off from the rest of the group and tore the whole mountain apart. At the end of the trip he asked for my phone number. And I gave it to him…fully aware that he hadn’t picked me for my amazing personality….but because of my ski jacket.

Soon after that, the boy called me and asked if I wanted to go out on a date. He came over, met my parents, we went to dinner, walked around the shopping center where the restaurant was. Then we got in his jeep to go home. He didn’t head home though…he drove his jeep to a secluded cul-de-sac. He leaned over and kissed me and then he jumped in the back seat. I remember feeling nauseous and wondering where this was going to go. I’d only kissed a few boys up until that point….mostly playing truth or dare at the beach with friends. I climbed in the back seat with him and we made out some more. Things started to go too far and I asked him to take me home. I made up some elaborate excuse about having to wake up early to go visit my horse. He seemed annoyed….but he did take me home. He drove up to the house but didn’t get out. He just dropped me off….and he never called me again. And instead of feeling great that I’d gotten myself out of that car with my virginity intact…I felt embarrassed…and ashamed…and awkward.  And that was the first little chip…chip… chip… away at me being the good girl.

Fast forward 2 years and a friend who happened to be a boy would say to me:

I’m just telling you this because we are friends…but all of our guy friends know that if it’s late, and you are drinking….they can probably make out with you.

And I’d laugh at him and tell him I wasn’t going to make out with him, but deep down it made me shrink inside of myself a little more. And then I’d drink myself into oblivion and tell everyone to f@#$ off.

I think that’s the same night my BFF made out with another friend’s boyfriend…and that friend confronted my BFF and I piped up and said “well he’s not that great of a boyfriend because I’ve hooked up with him too.” And I thought her broken heart was blown way out of proportion because, well, I really didn’t feel much of anything at that moment. And my response was probably something like “oh cry me an f@#$% river” because that’s what I remember saying to another friend in college. And by that time there had been so much chip… chip… chipping away….there was barely any of me left.*

*I know I’ve overused the word “and” in this post….but it seemed appropriate because it’s all a run on blur.

The alcohol didn’t just enter my life overnight. The first time I drank I didn’t feel so gangly and awkward and tall.  The next time I was a little more outgoing and talkative and brave. A dozen times after that I was the life of the party:  Oh my god, you were so hilarious last night. Or you are so fun when you drink.

And then it turns into a vicious cycle because I had to drink more because the fear would creep in:

What if people don’t like the real me?

I wanted to be liked….and popular…which I thought meant I had to hide things and keep secrets and say things I didn’t mean.  Drinking was like a putty to those little chips…filling in those empty voids. But eventually there’s nothing left to chip away at and you need a whole lot of putty….because you’ve left pieces of yourself all over the place.

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But all of this is strangely aligned because the night my guy friend told me I was the “go-to-gal-for-hooking-up-with-our-friends” I happened to be in the exact same place where I’d skied with that boy and the brown-70’s-snow-suit-girl 2 years earlier. And later that night my BFF and I ended up driving off the side of the mountain in my Landcruiser. Luckily we only ended up a few feet over the edge but the wheels spun wildly digging the car deeper into the snow as I tried to get up back onto the road. We were drunk, without winter coats, and only about a gallon of gas in the tank.

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We tried repeatedly to dig out the tires and then crawl back into the car close to hypothermia. The snow melted on our clothes with the car heat and then we were soaked. We’d take turns getting out to dig out the tailpipe so we wouldn’t die of carbon monoxide poisoning but we knew the gas wouldn’t last much longer and we’d probably freeze to death. As my fuel warning light came on, I slammed my door for the last time to conserve heat and it wouldn’t close: the car mat had come off of its hooks and was wedged between the door. I reached down to pull it back in and I felt the little half inch spikes on the bottom. Traction. I yelled to my friend to pull all the car mats out and we put them under each wheel. She drove and I pushed the mats underneath the tires. At first the spinning just shot the mats out like one of those baseball pitching machines….but eventually they started to get traction and the Landcruiser made its way inch by inch up towards the road. Of course… at the time…. I gave myself all the credit for that brilliant idea…but now I’m sure it was divine intervention.

And I can blame it all on that 70’s brown ski jacket, right?

So I’d love to know….what was your first “chip”?