How To Make Me Feel 15, In a Bad Way

I went to the wedding of one of my dearest friends this weekend. She married a great guy who loves her, and they are very well-suited for each other. I’ve known this girl for almost half my life, including all of my most debaucherous years. We were in college together, and Christine in college was an unbroken chain of drinking until I blacked out, trying to get laid so I would feel pretty or valuable, and making sure everyone knew I was as dedicated to the tortured creative life as anyone had ever seen.

I am not that girl anymore. I quit drinking almost seven years ago, and have worked really hard to keep the Christine that people like (the smartass, the loyal friend, the supportive person) and shed the things that kept me from being me (the drinking, the low self-esteem, the daddy issues.) And I’ve been successful at that. This wedding, though, served as a type of 10 year reunion, an event I avoided in real life like the plague. Some of the people at the reception were friends in college, a decade ago, and they only knew the girl I affectionately call Dark Me. That is the picture they have of me in their heads—falling down stairs, getting into arguments, the occasional barfing. And I have to own that, I guess—but there is this deep sense of melancholy about the fact that people I like and respect don’t know me anymore, and they may very well never have the chance to.

There is also the added pressure of not being in the perfect place in my career, and having what I haven’t done yet held up for inspection. I love my job, but I belong on the air, and that is not in the cards right now. I know it’s my problem—that I might not feel adequate by comparison to some of my old friends. But the feeling is still there—that I should have been conquering the world since college, and that my failure to is a direct result of me being a moron.

So how do I wan to measure myself? By what I think other people see? By what people I haven’t’ seen in ten years are doing? By the expectations I had of myself when I was a teenager? Or by the life I have now? The husband who loves me, the friends who managed to stick around through Dark Me? The talk show host who thinks I’m great at my job (thanks Gil!)? How do you measure your success? Or is the simple act of measuring at all counterproductive and crazy-making?

Originally written 6.08