The Big Flush: 1989 Finally Flushed

⚠️ THE BIG FLUSH HAS ENCOUNTERED A BLOCKAGE

Apparently the Universe and the Goddesses have decided that before I turn 56, we’re doing one final sweep of the spiritual plumbing.

Fine.

Flush whatever’s left. Clear the pipes. Send the old shit on its merry way. I am completely on board with this plan.

Or I was.

Because something isn’t moving.

There’s a gurgle.

Then another one.

Oh, for fuck’s sake.

Hekate looks at the Universe.

The Universe looks at Hekate.

I look at both of them and immediately know I am not going to enjoy whatever happens next.

Don’t.

Hekate picks up her torch.

Of course she fucking does.

She takes a look down into whatever passes for the sewer system of my soul and apparently finds the problem.

1989 never completely flushed.

Well, shit.

Apparently it went down far enough that I thought it was gone, but somewhere along the line it got stuck. And for thirty-seven years, other things have been catching on it.

Loneliness. Rejection. Friendship. Belonging. The need to be included. That quiet little question about whether people actually want me around.

Layer after layer, year after year.

No wonder the damn thing is clogged.

And apparently this pre-birthday Big Flush isn’t going to work until we get it out.

I look at Hekate.

Hekate looks at me.

Absolutely not.

She reaches for the spiritual drain snake.

Goddammit.

Fine.

Get the waders.

We’re pulling out 1989.

Well, Hello There

I ended up in the town where Ronnie grew up because my aunt lived there. I’m not going down that particular drain today because one spiritual excavation at a time, please.

I watched my cousins for her, but otherwise I was incredibly lonely. Not Gee, I wish somebody would call me lonely. I mean the kind of lonely that makes anywhere look like somewhere when you’ve spent enough time feeling like you belong nowhere.

Then I found people—or, more accurately, I found people who appeared to have exactly what I wanted.

Each other.

They had friendships, weekend plans, parties, history and inside jokes. They belonged somewhere, and holy shit, I wanted that.

At nineteen, I wouldn’t have explained it that way. I probably would have just said:

I want friends.

Three innocent little words.

Apparently they came with a thirty-seven-year spiritual plumbing warranty nobody bothered to tell me about.

Apparently Belonging Had a Cover Charge

At nineteen, I started smoking cigarettes.

That lasted about two months because they were fucking disgusting. Apparently my lungs developed boundaries before the rest of me did.

Good job, lungs.

I also started drinking at nineteen. Before that, I’d never had an alcoholic drink. For about two years, drinking became part of those weekend parties. Drugs were a hard no, and I stayed away from them.

But I went to the parties. I drank. I tried to fit in.

And some of it really was fun.

That’s important.

I’m not going to rewrite my history into doom music and thunderstorms just because I understand parts of it differently now. I laughed. I cared about people. I made memories that still make me smile.

Life is inconvenient that way.

Sometimes beautiful memories and terrible memories have the same people standing in them.

What I couldn’t see was how badly I wanted my place among them.

And some of my boundaries?

Apparently still on backorder.

Then There Were the Woods

One night, three girls chased me through the woods because they believed I was stealing someone’s boyfriend.

Small problem:

He wasn’t actually her boyfriend.

Apparently fact-checking had not yet reached rural New Jersey.

There was no discussion. No mediation. No strongly worded letter.

Just GET HER.

So I ran.

I hit branches. I fell. I got back up and kept going.

I’ve watched enough horror movies since then to know I was supposed to trip over the ONE ROOT IN THE ENTIRE FOREST and lie there screaming instead of getting the fuck back up.

Not me.

Apparently fear gave me cardio.

And one of the girls chasing me was Kimmy—someone I later became close to.

Yes.

Some friendships begin over coffee.

Ours apparently began with:

Remember that time you chased me through the woods?

Hallmark missed an entire greeting-card category.

And somehow, I kept hanging around.

Apparently the Universe decided subtlety wasn’t working.

The Field Party From Hell

Then came the field party.

I drank.

A lot.

At some point, gravity apparently said my turn, and I fell roughly ten feet down an embankment and went through a barbed-wire fence.

Not into it.

Through it.

I still have a scar on my face from the wire. I slammed my head into a boulder and managed to pierce my tongue with my own tooth.

I can only imagine the emergency meeting happening inside my body.

BRAIN: We have a problem.
LIVER: NO SHIT.
TONGUE: I’d like to file a complaint.
FACE: Get in line.

I was lucky to be alive.

Some boys took me to the hospital, and on the way I could hear them laughing about how stupid I’d been and how this was going to be the talk of the town.

Wonderful.

Nearly dying wasn’t enough.

We needed a fucking publicity department.

Meanwhile, bleeding and injured, what was my biggest concern?

MY GRANDMA IS GOING TO KILL ME!

I was living with her, and she already hated me hanging around in that town. She had warned me repeatedly, and now I was heading to the hospital looking like I’d lost a fight with several pieces of local infrastructure.

Small-town gossip traveled faster than the car taking me to the hospital.

And Grandma?

Grandma had receipts.

I can laugh about my priorities now, but I also know how differently that night could have ended.

You would think that might have been enough for me to hear what the Universe was saying.

Apparently I required a larger sign.

Fine. Here’s Your Billboard.

Another party.

This time I was sober.

A girl approached me because my ex’s brother had told her I’d called her a C.U.N.T.

For WordPress purposes, that now officially means:

Crazy, Unhinged Neighborhood Tramp.

There.

Classy.

Except I hadn’t called her that. I hadn’t called her anything.

I told her:

“I never called you a Crazy, Unhinged Neighborhood Tramp.”

Which somehow sounds significantly worse when you spell the whole damn thing out.

Then she punched me.

My nose shattered into my face, and she hit me in the back of the head.

That part isn’t funny.

The case eventually went to court, and I learned that several people had admitted to helping set the whole thing up.

People whose acceptance mattered to me.

People I wanted to call friends.

People I wanted to belong with.

Almost-56-year-old me looks back at nineteen-year-old me now and thinks:

Honey.

You were chased through the woods. You nearly died at a field party. Your nose was shattered.

At this point the Universe wasn’t whispering.

It had rented a fucking billboard.

But walking away meant risking the one thing nineteen-year-old me was desperately trying to escape.

Being alone again.

Oh.

There it is.

Belonging.

No wonder 1989 wouldn’t flush.

So That’s What Was Gunking Up the Pipe

For years, I could look back at that girl and wonder what the hell she was thinking.

Now I understand her differently.

She wasn’t stupid. She wasn’t weak. She was lonely.

She wanted connection. She wanted people who noticed when she wasn’t there. She wanted somewhere she could walk into and know she belonged.

She hadn’t learned yet that being included isn’t always the same thing as being loved.

She didn’t know that being invited doesn’t automatically mean you’re safe. She didn’t know that you shouldn’t have to prove your worth over and over just to keep your seat at somebody else’s table.

She hadn’t learned it yet.

And maybe that’s why 1989 wouldn’t completely flush.

Because underneath all the parties, chaos, bad decisions and people was something I never really dealt with:

I wanted to be chosen.

Oh.

Well, fuck.

Now I understand why Hekate had the damn flashlight.

Maybe this Big Flush isn’t about getting rid of my past. Maybe it’s about finally clearing out what got stuck there—understanding why it stayed, keeping the lessons, loving the versions of myself who didn’t know what I know now, and letting the rest finally go.

I imagine Hekate giving me that knowing little look.

Don’t look so pleased with yourself, Lady.

We’re five fucking posts into this.

I asked for clarity.

I did not request a spiritual colonoscopy.

Still, I think we finally got 1989 loose.

So…

FLUSH.

There it goes.

Good riddance.

Wait.

…