How to Be Perfect Like Me

by Dana Bowman

  Because what else is there to do?

  I could give up. You see, sometimes all the counselors and prayers and green juices and yoga classes don’t seem to work. Or they only work a little, or for a little while, and it’s all so very tiring to keep trying. So, I could give up. I know people who have, and they are dead. Perhaps it seemed their best answer to a brain so tired and tangled.

  And I could keep drinking because that was an answer for a while. I could drink and drink, but soon that would prove about as helpful as slamming a door so hard against the winter cold that you break the glass. In comes the cold, and the only thing left to do is sit down and fall asleep in it.

  I could give up. It might seem easier.

  But when I started to listen to that girl, the one with the shoulders that shook with tears and anger, and I bent down and looked at her face and just listened? She looked right back at me, and in a still, small voice I heard her say, “I am still here.”

  Feeling Sad? Refer to this Flowchart

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  HOW TO

  be happy

  As I walked up the steps of the governor’s mansion, a plainclothes policeman with one of those weird earpiece things greeted me. Next, he opened the door and gestured me inside. Mr. Plainclothes Policeman made eye contact, and immediately I was nervous. Then, I had that lovely moment where I remembered that I was sober, and I hadn’t done anything with a breath of illegal in it for a long time. I smiled at him archly and sauntered in.

  It was just like the set of The Bachelor—but for happily married people and without all the short skirts and contouring. I was wearing tall, very Bachelor-contestant-like red heels, however. They were patent leather and expensive, and I had bought them specifically for this event. I thought of them as my talismans of good luck.

  In retrospect, I don’t stand by my decision to wear shoes that make walking impossible. Shoes were invented to aid in the walking process, right? But these shoes? They had it in for me. As I wobbled past the front entrance, my spiky heel caught in the front rug and I did a lunge and clatter, right into the marble hallway. A small group of people stood in front of me, in full view of my acrobatics, and as they turned my way I realized it was the governor—the governor and a flock of authors. My shoes were total schmucks.

  Being happy is hard. I fear its entrance because it has the potential to trip all over itself and not live up to my expectations. Also, happiness, like a perfect spring day, eventually has to leave, and I am so very bad at leaving.

  As the people surrounding the governor stared at me, I began to think that it would be a good time to leave. Each person was holding one of those Jell-O-cup-sized plastic containers filled with wine. As I recovered from my entrance, smoothed my skirt, and smiled at full wattage, I did that thing where I tabulate all the alcohol around me. I was like an idiot savant with a drinking problem. I counted four reds and two whites in the circle, all still at three-quarters full. And there was some weirdo with a Coke. The governor had a glass of white, too, I noted. His was half gone, so of course I decided he had a “problem,” and it would only be a matter of time before we started seeing articles about him like that poor Mayor Ford guy in Canada. I sidled up closer to Coke guy and smiled at him because surely he would be drinking at this event if he could, so he must have been one of my people.

  It seems I look for my people whenever I am at places like the governor’s mansion, about to talk about my book because it won a big award. It’s a fabulous thing to win awards and schmooze with government officials and guys with earpieces and eat my weight in brie, but Lord, I am having the worst time.

  I would love a drink right now. Well, it’s the guilt-ridden, codependent, kind of Sid-and-Nancy kind of love, but anyway.

  A young girl walked by in black pants and a green polyester vest. I gathered she must be hired help, since no one wears such attire unless under duress. She noticed that I was standing without a Jell-O cup and asked, “What would you like?”

  Okay, Vest Girl. I’ll tell you what I would like.

  I would like to redo my entrance to this event because now I think everyone has decided I’m the weird one, instead of Coke guy.

  Actually, I would like to have written a book and won all sorts of awards for it, but when it comes to actually standing in this room right now, I would like a hard pass.

  I would like someone in recovery to walk up to me right now and say, “Let me take you away from all of this,” hand me a Reese’s Peanut Butter Cup, and usher me smoothly out of the room.

  Also, I would like that person to be Robert Downey, Jr.

  I would like to know that I will always be happy and successful.

  I would like to get out of these shoes because they are slowly taking my toes and bending them backward on top of my feet.

  I would like to stop smelling the sharp tang of red wine because now, as a woman in recovery, I can sniff out alcohol like some sort of bloodhound with a Big Book.

  I would like to eat about twenty of those brie-and-puffy things. They look delish.

  I would like to understand how I got here. And really? I would like to feel happy about it.

  I finally told Vest Girl I would like a Sprite. It was fizzy and would have to do. I considered asking for a Shirley Temple, but that seemed precocious. I only do precocious in the privacy of my own home.

  The floor in the governor’s mansion was a slick, smooth, highly polished wood that had the feel of ice. I wondered how the governor and his wife walked in this house. I would imagine only super grippy things would work, such as rubber rain boots or those Croc atrocities. Then, an image of our governor in purple Crocs popped in my mind, causing me to shake my head.

  Socks, on the other hand, would be a blast—all the careening and swooping about—because you could travel from room to room at light speed. A new mental image formed of our governor doing that epic Tom Cruise slide into the living room in Risky Business. I shook my head again. I then wondered whether the rooms upstairs were carpeted. There, I could walk from one end of the room to the other without any mishap. I longed for the upstairs. To my left was a long stairway leading up to the thickly carpeted wonderment that was the second story, but Mr. Plainclothes Policeman might not understand my fixation on flooring.

  I went through all of those thoughts in about twenty seconds.

  No one, besides our dapper waitress, spoke to me.

  I clearly needed to sit down. Talking to people was next. The waitress showed up with my Sprite, and I wondered if I could just strike up a conversation with her. “So . . . what brings you here?” That sort of thing. Instead, I walked, very, very slowly, over to a side room. It seemed to be a lovely and airy sun porch with vases of sunflowers and yellow wicker furniture. It also had a precarious step down to enter, but the flooring inside there was a slate that didn’t seem as deadly as the front entrance.

  I carried my plate with a polite amount of cheese and my Sprite and concentrated on making it to a chair. Everyone in the room was chattering away, like they all liked each other, and I smiled. Smiling is easy. I can do smiling.

  And then, one gentleman saved my life. “Come sit here! We are all trying to get over being awkward and introverted authors with each other. Come be introverted with us. Who are you?”

  I would have kissed the man if I hadn’t been so carefully trying to walk toward him.

  My book, Bottled: A Mom’s Guide to Early Recovery, won an award from the state and was named a Kansas Notable Book. The other books that had been selected were all about Kansas trails or birds or historical things that happened in our state, which were respectable topics and kind of what I figured academic and virtuous people read.

  My book was about being an alcoholic. It described crying jags, throwing carrot cakes, and my longing for tequila at 3:00 p.m. Here, at the governor’s mansion, I had the whole “One of These Things Is Not Like the Other” as my walk-on theme song. There were numerous introductions and interviews and all of them wer
e paired with “So, your book is a bit different in that . . .” and I would smile, nod, and wonder whether next time I should insert some prairie wildlife with drinking problems.

  I was thrilled to win the award.

  It was a huge honor.

  On the next night during the awards ceremony, I found out that I would receive a medal. My kids watched, big-eyed, as the governor’s wife placed the heavy accessory around my neck. Their mom won something blingy. It was a good moment.

  There were other good moments. My best friend, Christy, came to the ceremony and took all sorts of pictures, like best friends are supposed to do. She sat next to me before I was supposed to go up and collect my award because I was nervous and she makes me laugh.

  “Do I have stuff in my teeth?” I whispered to her. “Is my hair okay?”

  “Cool it,” she whispered back. “You look fine. Just whatever you do. Do. Not. Fall. Down.”

  As far as friends go, Christy is top-notch. In fact, later, when I was chatting with her on the phone about my uneasiness at the cocktail party, she gave me the best advice.

  “Dana. If you want a Shirley Temple, order the damn Shirley Temple.”

  “Really?”

  “Yes. Just say, ‘You there, sir! Bring forth a Shirley Temple!’”

  “Uh, ‘bring forth’? This isn’t a jousting event.”

  “Whatever. Say it!”

  “Bring forth a Shirley Temple!”

  “Good! Now, again!” We practiced this for a bit until it got weird, and my husband yelled from the next room, “OH, GO GET ONE, ALREADY.”

  At the awards ceremony, my boys and my husband sat farther back because small children needed to be far away from the pomp and circumstance. The ceremony was held in the state senate at the capitol, in a room spacious and official and historical. Everything seemed touched with a sort of glow. I was a big deal on this day.

  The previous night’s cocktail party, with its talking and tricky flooring, was but a memory. Today, I got to walk around with a flipping medal around my neck like I had won the Book Olympics. After the ceremony, our handler even said to us, “Now, we want you to keep your medals on all day. Please. So everyone will know you are who you are.” Evidently, introverted authors don’t wear medals often, and every year they always nervously try to shed them as soon as the award ceremony has ended. Silly authors. She would have none of it.

  “I’m supposed to wear this all day,” I told Brian, shyly looking down at my medal like I needed to get permission.

  He hugged me and said, “They’re taking a picture in the rotunda with all the other big, famous authors. Go on. We’ll meet you by the entrance. The boys want to mess with security and play with the metal detectors.”

  I came to find out, when you forget that you have a large metal object the size of a coaster hanging around your neck, security detectors scare the living daylights out of you. It’s a learning process.

  I got home from my weekend of me and put the medal in my office. My office is where I have all my writing files, books, and other professional trappings, and so of course I never, ever really, actually write up there. I write on the couch with a bag of Blow Pops and my dog as a blanket. It’s a process.

  On those days when the cat boxes are overflowing and I burn the quesadillas, I miss my medal. I wonder if I tromped upstairs—past all the detritus of life, small children, and other nuisances—and put it on, whether it would protect me like Wonder Woman’s golden bracelets. Maybe it could ward off overdue bills and insults from online trolls with a flip of my wrist, perhaps paired with a Wonder Woman karate kick. Given my lack of grace, this might end up with me hurting myself, but the image makes me smile. For one day, I was fabulous, and I have a medal to prove it.

  It all takes me back to my inner showgirl. Now, I have bling to add to my strut. “Me?” I snarl, “I am a WRITER,” and I prance away, medal thwacking me in the chest, trailing glitter and validation.

  Happiness is hard. It doesn’t stick around. It squirms away, and then all we have are memories, and those don’t stick around either if you’re old like me. Happiness is effervescent. Bubbles aren’t stalwart. If they were, they would hurt.

  Happiness is hard because it dresses itself in big emotion, and this can tire a person out after a while.

  Happiness is hard because it doesn’t follow a rule book. Some days, it doesn’t make a lot of noise; it can approach as silent and slinky as a cat. On other occasions, it wants to party, and we can sing along. Other times, it seems to want to alight on my hand, but if I grip too hard, it dies. I cannot handle all this willy-nilliness with the happiness.

  In other words, it is not easy keeping happy alive.

  Grim despair seems a little more dependable. It can be dialed up with the weather, family dinners, or a government election. It comes when called.

  I remember happiness when I was drinking. It had an elevator feel, like my head and heart were full of helium, and the world, with all its necessary troubles, stayed below. It did come on cue. It served me like that Vest Girl at the governor’s mansion whenever I opened a bottle. But eventually, this version looked down at itself and rebelled. “I’m on break,” Happiness would say. “This vest makes me look really stupid. I’m out.” And just like that, she would be gone.

  So now that happiness and wine were refusing to work together, I would have to serve myself. Happiness is such a pain in the ass.

  I remember drinking and being happy. And then I remember drinking only so I could be happy. It’s like booting up your computer and telling it, “Now, you will be the one thing in my life that will bring me wealth and riches! Nothing else can contribute to this. Only you, my darling computer, will show me the money. Not a job, or investments, or hand-crocheted potholders at a craft fair. Nothing else will WORK. It’s all on you. Okay!?”

  Silence from the computer. “Okay, maybe we don’t have to aim for being rich. You can at least help me buy some new shoes without tippy heels, right?” And the computer would stare back at me. It would be a one-sided conversation.

  “Or, uh, just help me pay the bills? So the lights stay on? Please?”

  I remember happiness when I was drinking, but I don’t trust these memories. They feel all John Hughes-y with puffy sleeves and too much Drakkar Noir. Or, I recall gleaming bars, dark-red lipstick, and martinis like I was some sophisticated nineties Bond Girl. I know those kinds of things happened, but mostly? It was just me, some boxed wine, and tater tots.

  I’m pretty sure drinking wasn’t happiness. Even from the beginning, drinking for me had an ulterior motive, and I don’t think happiness operates that way. It doesn’t have time for motives; it’s too busy taking up all the space with its own happy self.

  My husband, the weirdo-normie, got to have his share of happy drinking shenanigans. I don’t hold it against him. He has told me many times, “I just like the taste of beer.” In my view, this is the equivalent of the people who say they read Playboy for the articles. But Brian is not much of a liar. He gets all blinky when he does, and as I recall, the last time he did drink a beer it was one of those atrocious, coffee-thick Guinness things. That kind of beer takes real commitment. So yes, it’s possible he really did drink it because he likes the taste. Who else would down a glass of molasses-flavored foamy booze? So, he had fun. He did stupid stuff and partied with his friends and, I think, once, bull riding was involved.

  For me, drinking always had a subtext. If Brian’s drinking was an Adam Sandler film, mine was one of those Ingmar Bergman numbers with all the pale people and subtitles.

  I didn’t even know what happiness was then. If someone had delivered a basket of puppies and chocolate—perhaps separate baskets, let’s be prudent—to my front door, I might have felt an upward blip in my emotional matrix, but I wonder.

  And, as I got older, I smushed any chance of happiness under all that wine. Maybe we all lose bits of our happiness as we get older. Maybe it gets smushed under being responsible or getting a big house
or being the perfect mom. I’m not saying we are all happiness-smushers, but I don’t know. Have you waited in line at a big-box store recently? Have you looked around? Nobody seems all that happy anymore. My brand of happiness just got smushed a lot faster due to all the alcoholic stuff. I am a cautionary tale.

  This is the part of the book where I stop and blame Donald Trump for all of this, but I’m not going to. Besides, everybody else has already done that.

  Instead, I blame Charles Schulz.

  Yes, you know the one. Beloved animator. Snoopy maker. The one who told us, “Happiness is two kinds of ice cream.” But happiness is so not that. Because, eventually, we’re going to wonder where all the mocha chip is. What’s that green stuff over there? Does it have sprinkles? Why did she get sprinkles, and I didn’t?

  Thank you, Charles Schulz. Thank you for selling us the idea that happiness can be bought with five crayons and a glance from a red-headed girl. Well, it’s not that easy, Charlie Brown.

  Happiness is hard. It’s elusive and shifty. It can alight, all diaphanous and soft, like a veil, and then poof, someone grabs it and runs. It usually gets ripped in the process and then is impossible to mend. Veils don’t stitch up properly. They’re too . . . veil-y.

  And no, all of you who are going to say, “Well, contentment, then! We just need to feel contentment. Happiness is like the super buzz you get the first half hour after you take your allergy pill! Contentment is just the knowledge that you won’t be snotting all over the place for twenty-four hours. Let’s just stick with the boring consolation prize that is contentment! Right?”

  Oh, no. Wrong. Very wrong. I am so tired of hearing people try to sell contentment. Yes, contentment is a deep-seated, blessed assurance that life, despite its nuttiness, will essentially be okay.

  But I want to be happy. I really, really do.