The Smoke Screen

I used to write a blog in college, entitled “Confessions of A 21 Year Old Drama Queen.” That blog covered the comic tragedy of the college gal, specifically the trials and tribulations of “dating” college boys and all its very glamorous trappings. I wrote about my own experiences, like when a boy called me a “fat hog” and I called him a “top-tier-pussy-fascist-patagonia-minion.” Or I wrote my general observations like The Netflix & Chill Analysis, where I criticized men for their obnoxious entitlement to sex for merely pressing play on a laptop - “If you think that you can just conquer King’s Landing before the Game of Thrones theme song even ends, then you really know nothing, Jon Snow.” No matter what I wrote about, I always tried to solve each little anecdote with an empowering & sexy solution or perspective, such as on ghosting: “When he comes back, as they always do, you won’t be there. You’ll be in full glam at a rooftop bar, or studying for your MCATs, or 69ing with a deserving man & moaning because you mean it, not as a performance tactic to avoid doing your part.” I felt so loved and seen when friends or other women would tell me how much they appreciated what I wrote. Even a couple men deigned to read it… of course, after suspending their utter disbelief that I could actually perform critical thinking, forcing them to accept the extremely controversial take that I had a functioning brain.

Naturally, in blogging relentlessly and graphically about said boys, it appeared that I was very public about my experiences & personal life. But what most didn’t know was that that blog & the persona I created in writing it were actually mechanisms of a smoke screen to distract from very real challenges that were occurring behind the scenes. In my mind, writing about Chad who ghosted me was a much easier, more palatable story to tell, rather than narrating the heroic sagas about my sick mom as she packed up our foreclosed-on house, or my dad as he squatted homeless in a tent in Arkansas with our family dog, or myself as I sat in a Christiansburg, VA coffee shop where I met local sugar daddies to pay my rent and blasted “Look What You Made Me Do” on my drive home.

So while my real life made me feel helpless and ashamed, that blog allowed me to be someone who was powerful and in control. And the more I wrote, the more I found people thinking of me as the persona I was creating. This led me to believe my smoke screen worked. In fact, on a particular night downtown, one boy who I stupidly thought was my friend - which, how foolish of me to think that a male at that age actually thought of me as a person once sex was off the table - told me he thought I was way too honest on the blog & I should fear the “Taylor Swift Curse” for sharing everything. His words, not mine. First of all……thank you dearly for comparing me to Mother. And secondly, Kurt, the joke was on you the whole time - you bought into a carefully curated reality that I concocted for you. You are my sweet little doe-eyed Dorothy and I am mighty Oz behind the curtain.

But frankly, I reveled in those moments. I reveled in them for 2 reasons. 1) Everything I was writing was true & I stand by everything I said. And although it didn’t plague me as much as the blog made it seem, college fuckboys indeed were my pandemic before The Pandemic, and I sincerely loved writing a weekly manifesto against them. But 2) When someone talked to me about what I wrote, even if it was small-white-boy Kurt who thought taking Chinese 1 was a character trait, and even if he looked down on my blog, it meant he’d believed I was only that person and nothing more. Let people think I’m just an oversharer. Because if people think I’m oversharing, they’ll never suspect I’m hiding anything.

And that thought was rooted in shame that was predicated on my very unfortunate Greek-life status-driven mentality - an ethos I now deeply regret. I feared that Slutty-bloggy-tell-all-Barbie was acceptable, while Regular-at-the-Virginia-Tech-food-pantry-Barbie was not. And as it turned out, indeed she was not. As soon as I revealed the truth about my destitute circumstances out of sheer desperation, I paid for it. My sorority didn’t offer options to accommodate my sisterhood. Instead, they ignored my request to set a meeting and sent my unpaid dues to a Debt Collections service. Not to mention, some frat-dick-head named Bobby, to whom I’d hardly spoken, started a pathetic rumor that on one of my midnight rides as a Campus Cookies Delivery Driver, he alleged I delivered his White Chocolate Macadamia Nuts & then sucked on his, because I was so desperate for a larger tip. Bobby, I’d sooner choke on the rubber of all four tires on my 2004 Chevy Equinox, be fucking for real.

So I rehash all of this to describe the plethora of conditions that fueled my desire to hide, with the blog functioning as the wall to keep people out. A camouflage in plain sight. But the truth is: as I was telling myself that that blog was to divert my peers’ attention from the struggles in my life, I was really diverting my own. In fact, the blog was more than a diversion, it was a fucking oasis. I somehow recognized myself there again. Stringing silly little words together about silly little boys and their silly little choices actually made me feel… energized, purposeful, valuable, alive. Way more alive than anything I learned in school, way more alive than I felt downtown, waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay more alive than I ever felt with any of the men about whom I wrote. The only feeling that may have rivaled it at the time was a morning debrief and belly-laugh installment with my friends.

Writing that Confessions blog made me realize that the topic didn’t matter, I could write about anything - even college trash - and it made me feel accepted by and connected to a greater source. Not connection to something in a religious way, but in a way that I feel like some essence of the universe is flowing through me the way it’s supposed to be. Like the universe recognizes my most valuable outputs, and sucks them down like bottomless mimosas, happily seeking copious glasses of me.

So the point in this new blog, Straight Up With Olives, is to access that feeling - of wholeness, meaningful contribution, deep gratitude for life, sincere pride & joy, you get it. In the last few years, I’ve climbed to the mountain-top of that chaos to which I've alluded and I’ve written so much that has healed me that I’ve never shared. My vault tracks lol :) But I also just love to write, just moved to NYC, and want to live out my Main-Character-Carrie-Bradshaw-I-Couldn’t-Help-But-Wonder-fantasy, ok? Fucking sue me. And the best part is I feel like in many ways, I've actually now become the woman I wanted to be in that first blog along.

If you have any interest in reading forward, this blog is just the older, wiser sister of her predecessor. This post merely being the bridge between the two: in memoriam of the first blog and an introduction of what's to come. I plan to cover the same topics with the same tone - men (my favorite sparring partner), all five of my great loves, including my literally-how-is-this-even-possible-perfect love, all the girls-girliest things, the god-like power of my friendships, hilarious stories that challenged me and changed my life (re: Look What You Made Me Do powered drive home), more Taylor Swift, lists of my favorite random shit, you name it. Maybe we start with the sugar-daddy-journey next week because why the fuck not? His name was J. Just J.

The theme we’re targeting is hilarious & healing. I’m not here to brand myself or influence or “gain a following” - cringe. I’m just here to gab like friends over cocktails, belly-laugh like we’re cross-legged together on someone's-stained-couch, and be straight up (with olives, duh) and filled to the glass' brim with life. If that interests you, grab a drink & stick around. <3

And to the real belly-laughers that saw behind the smoke screen, thank you for everything.

With olives,

Sar