But I still like the taste.

I haven’t reached for the bottle lately. But sometimes I do. I haven’t thought about it much. But sometimes I do.

There was a time when I would drink a bottle of wine every night and think myself so romantic, so misunderstood. I was self-pitying and self-important. I’d smoke cigarettes I didn’t buy and rant about the destructive ways that the tobacco industry has hurt our society. 

I would sit on a rooftop and think that the world had wronged me somehow until I realized that the confidence I performed wasn’t a love I had for myself at all. It was my own anger. Rage towards myself and my life. I had a sailor’s tongue and a middle finger to anyone who wanted to get to know me.

I had a problem. I had made myself incapable of happiness on my own terms. Love and lust became blurry, and I was intoxicated by infatuation. Everything was superficial so I could leave it all behind in the morning. Nothing was important enough to me that I cared at all; I could walk away at any moment and still think myself in the right every time.

I was set in my ways, stubborn and mean. I would be an old spinster, railing at the system, driven by the desire to help those I deemed more needy than myself in order to feel good about myself, to forget how lonely I felt. It was no higher calling, it was selfish. I made decisions of what to do with my life with the goal of being able to deem myself better than those around me. If I was better than them, I was good, right?

Love is not an ideal that we chase like world peace. It is the things we do every day, the way we interact with the world around us, and how we present ourselves. I realized that love is actionable. 

We all learned from Professor Snape that you can love someone your entire life and do nothing about it. In some ways, that devotion is romantic. It’s great for movies. But it’s no way to live.

If I wanted love for myself I would need to work at it like a muscle. I would need discipline to gain the muscle memory of performing self love. Only when I felt love for myself on my own, when I understood what love was on a personal level could I offer it to someone else, should I experience it from someone else.

Sometimes I wish I could go back to those days when nothing mattered to me, when I was misunderstood and miserable. Oddly, it was easier. There was no risk. 

I still drink wine. I still sit on the patio and romanticize a glass or two. I drink more with a friend as we gossip and tell stories we’d maybe hope to forget. I dance around the apartment on my second glass of wine and savor the moment I’m having, enjoying the life I’m living. Then I put the bottle away. I go to bed excited to start the next day.

Now, I do things that matter to me, that I think are important and I do them with love. I am less guarded, I am vulnerable to hurt because I care. I am open about who I am and I am happy in what I do. I take care to be intentional with what I take into my life and what I give back out into the world.