One Hell of a Glass of Wine

One Hell of a Glass of Wine

by Stephanie Braeuner

Salty drops of open wounds stream down pink and peach hills. Gravity merges their existence into a red ocean of 24 proof escapism.

“How did I get here?” she thought. “I followed all the rules, made the plans, followed my dreams, and did everything everyone told me to do to be successful, to be happy.“

And yet, she sits alone, jealous of saline drowning in rouge with leftovers getting cold in the microwave. She doesn’t know why. She mimics the same as she submerges her mistakes in tannins under the guise that it’s merely for inspiration. Obsessing in thoughts of mediocrity to internal soundtracks of devastating 90s power ballads, she wonders when she will finally catch a break. She can’t decide what kind of break she needs. She does, nevertheless, need an overarching moment that eclipses the feeling of inadequacy that stalks her every step. Surrounded by unabating resolutions and unrealistic optimism about a new life that one day will bring she says, “One day. When will that happen?“

One day, one piece of paper to scribe 365 days worth of dreams, desires, and goals. Those closest to her tell her she needs to focus on one thing every day without knowing it’s that same dance that has made her feel so incredibly ordinary. She built her entire personality around one thing. For sixteen years this one thing, a dance that most people pretend to know in the movies, satisfies her need for purpose. Although to others, this one thing appears to be compelling until the novelty wears off. Then it’s back to the flat, one dimensional existence of being just like “all of the other girls” and less like romantic cinema.

She continues to brood on the thought that people don’t know how to simply exist anymore. Life has morphed into a series of patterns based off of expected milestones and self improvement. It’s about becoming instead of being. Like the waves of the ocean that are always there, people flock to them searching for respite and yet they continue to exist, without the crowds, once beach season is over.

She stares at the pen lying dead on a notepad as vacant as she wished she felt. There’s nothing but choices in front of her and still she feels the suffocating weight of making the right one.  “What’s the point anyway? Why waste the ink?”

The only joy such a process brings is painting the paper with color and filling it with words of fragile hope that can easily be destroyed by the elements.

She sips her wine

“Time isn’t real. If it was, how can this moment seem never ending while others are gone before you realize you are even looking behind you,“ she chokes as she hears the gospel of Ms. Gaynor signaling that whether joyful or not, there is life ahead.

Yet another mark of failure.

That thought doesn’t last long as Gloria’s voice fades to the echoes of Beyoncé, Kelly, and Michelle. When she needs a hype team the most, these women will always be by her side, side B of her mixtape.

Life never seems to be playing in real time. It’s always pause, fast forward, and rewind. Then again, time isn’t real. It’s a tedious cycle of counting up and counting down. When the days, hours, and minutes lead up to midnight each year giving everyone temporary tinnitus, it feels more like pageantry than authenticity. She sips again to wash down the last one. 

Her therapist constantly tries to remind her that perspective makes all the difference. Mystified by the thought of thinking any differently, she stares into the astronomical chasm that is her small living room. She has no interest in joining the armies of pyramid greetings to classmates from decades ago. “Financial freedom“ are their battle cries when they are slaves to spamming social media pretending to be long term friends that simply lost touch. She is desperately trying to think of something to write when all she can hear are the words of Gloria, Beyoncé, Kelly, and Michelle expertly recap the past 518 days.

“I should eat something but I’m not really hungry.” Instead, she sips. “If I could count the times that I have been told, it’s just a numbers game, I probably wouldn’t be crying into my glass of wine.“

She sips again. She looks at the paper. Something that was once alive was destroyed, then processed and transformed into this moment of distressing opportunity. It’s empty. It’s still. It’s new and it’s not even the stroke of midnight on December 31st. Who’s to say life can’t change at 3:36 PM on a Tuesday in March? A fresh start, she’s looking right at it. It remains the color of purity, untormented by past mistakes and phantoms of unrequited overtures. In lieu of songs of silent prayer requests, engagement/birth announcements, and performative transparency crescendoing to a coda of #beautifuldisaster or #dumpsterfire, the unknown is her future. She oscillates between excitement and fear at the thought of living life without a plan. The only place plans have taken her is face down on the floor in a pool of regret and disenchantment.

“Is this good enough,” she reflects, “What happens if I meet someone and he thinks I’m not ambitious enough or asks me what I bring to the table?”

She looks down at her table, set with flowers she bought for herself, an almost empty wine glass, bottle of wine that she purchased purely for the interesting label, spiritless pen, and bare paper. In this moment, all she wants to do is lie in the floor and sing her favorite song to take her to a place that she has never been. That place where someone can take one look at her table seeing the dead flowers that should have been replaced two weeks ago and the scribbles of thoughts that make no sense to anyone but her and say…nothing.

She drinks one last time, enjoying the final moments of salt and berry, releases a satisfying sigh, and grips the pen. It dances between her fingertips before meeting the page. It swirls and loops leaving behind the lines and curves of only two words just before going back to sleep. She smiles, stands up, and walks away. The front door to her apartment closes and latches behind her. Her absence leaves the apartment feeling cold while the ambient sounds from outside quietly sneak in, birds chirping quickly followed by the horn of a restless driver yelling obscenities. The sun’s rays spotlight the space where her purse rested just minutes ago joined by a cadence of bike bells and microwave beeps distantly reminding her of what she left behind.

That was one hell of a glass of wine!