Twenty- One.

I’d love to say my twenty-first birthday wasn’t a big ole cliche, but shamefully it was. I got white girl wasted in the worst way. Two of my best college girlfriends made me sign a “21 Shots Contract,” where I pledged to take 21 shots that weekend. Great idea. I think I made it to seven shots before things got hairy. My parents were kind enough to get me a room at the Embassy Suites as a birthday gift (what were they thinking? LOL), so I was lit. My parents trusted me enough to have a hotel room and not do anything crazy because I really was a responsible young adult. In fact, I would say I was kind of a goody two-shoes most of my life. Some people are born with an innate desire to do the right thing and follow the rules. I wouldn’t say I was necessarily one of those people, I was just scary. Scared to get in trouble, scared to get a whoopin’ or scared something would go freakishly wrong and I’d have to deal with the long-lasting consequences.

I drank a little bit before the legal age, but again, I was scared; so I’d never been drunk or even buzzed before. My twenty-first birthday was my moment to enjoy alcohol without feeling guilty or paranoid like I always did. By night’s end, all I felt was sick. Like face-first, hold my weave out the way, hugging the toilet bowl sick. Being drunk wasn’t as glamorous as I thought it would be, it sucked actually.

Which brings me to today’s lesson for lil’ baby Ashli at twenty-one. I’d tell her that a lot of things you build yourself up for aren’t as spectacular as you think they’ll be. Sometimes they are, but often they’re not. I’d say don’t sign a shots contract like a doo-doo head, it’s bound to end in disaster. But, on the contrary, part of me would tell her to do just do just what she did; because if she had been the completely responsible young adult her parents thought she was, I (the 29-year-old me) wouldn’t have had that great memory of being young and dumb.