The ultimate party girl. I was that girl who could drink bourbon all night and into the morning – all-day-long. Got any E’s or some Bolivian marching powder?  you were speaking my language. I never knew when to stop. It all started at the ripe old age of   12 years old. The rave scene was at its peak.  Drugs were strong  (not cut with loads of rat poisoning or other shit) and people hardly drank alcohol. We all loved one another and each other. You always found a friend at every underground Rave and every club you went to.

In my home town in South Africa, Saturday night was a party on the rooftops till 7 am, then it was time to hit ‘Church’ with more drugs and new best friends and do the blitz until you literally dropped or the drugs ran out.Then it was time to for a gentle come down, usually at the top of a hill,in a cemetery, with jaw-dropping views.  The Ganja would come out and the silence of being in nature would occasionally be interrupted by easy-going laughter and ‘campfire-like’ stories buzzing about.

Sounds awesome, right? Well,  it was for a bit…

Being an extremist  -no grey areas sort of ‘gal, it led me down a different path altogether. You see, I didn’t know it then but I wanted to get mashed up properly because I hated myself . I had no self -respect, no hope, no vision nor ambition. From a young age, I self-harmed. At 5 years old I already had eating issues.  Most people I have encountered in my life- bar the bastards and bitches (mind you even them at one point said something similar)  told me I was an all-rounder: smart, privileged, loved, beautiful, charismatic, vulnerable yet wilful.

Did I stop to take in all these compliments that my older self now craves for?

Hell no!

I kind of distanced myself away from my true friends. The ones I had known since I was 7 years old. I decided to take on other people’s judgements of what I thought they believed about me, and internalised that and began self-harming at a ferocious speed, I began to feel like the scapegoat and target for my supposed best friends jokes.

 Someone has to become the target, None of them was going to come forward willingly.  I went through a stage of overeating and when I started going the other way and stopped eating I obviously lost a lot of weight. Suddenly, guy friends were flirting with me and my girl-friends started berating me.  Eventually, I got pushed out of the clique for good -part self -blame and part snotty insecure teenage friends to blame.  I didn’t need their petty shit.

 I became a shaker and a roller. I did an impressive gamble with my life right up until my 30’s. I got hooked on Crack, Mandrax, Coke, and Pills. being skinny, overdosing and cutting myself.  You name it. My friend circle became drug dealers,  hardcore- addicts and people I met whilst hitchhiking to go buy my drugs. Oh yeah, an asylum of perverted old men who tried to abuse me or wanted to turn me into dollar/ pound signs, for their own gain of course.

 At the ‘mature’ age of 17 years old I didn’t exactly go willingly to live in France or the U.K.

Nobody and no-one could handle me. I was etching closer and closer into the dark tunnel- sans- bright white light and a myriad of angels. I couldn’t keep the food down. My bones ached from all the crap in the drugs that I smoked and took. I couldn’t face anyone except my drug dealers. I wouldn’t leave the house at all. My mood went up and down, I was put on prescription pills. Doctors decided I was a head case and I gained a  bunch of labels -brand genes that I didn’t particularly want to wear.

When my Grandpa passed away from cancer, I moved from France back to the U.K. and I calmed down a bit. I started working but people with ‘issues’ were drawn to me. I guess I aimlessly found what I was looking for. Was it a friend? a boyfriend? crazy and magical life experiences?  Oh, I had all those in the palm of my hand but the drugs and the self- starvation always gripped me first.

 I don’t think anyone ever thought I would not be a party girl until I had to rip the crown off my head and begrudgingly let some other younger, prettier and more popular girls pick up from where I haggardly turned off and tuned out from that world completely.

 Some say that life is a destination  but I see my life as being more of a  journey and I can’t say I would change anything.  These days the road more travelled: is with my true self. I love myself, respect myself and I have learnt a lot about people, the world and myself. I am still learning and never want to stop.

I love what I do with my life now! 

 A daughter to look after? Never in a million years was I going to catch out until I did of course. I don’t regret my daughter.

Get married? oh please. I’m far too contrary and I have to do the opposite of what society expected of me. Some say I have ‘grown-up’. I hate this term. I prefer to say, I have released my true inner soul into the world and everything I now believe in and want is coming to me. I don’t have the same people drawn to me as when I was ‘the party girl of many seasons’. I’m calmer. I sometimes think I’m bloody boring to be honest but it’s cool.

I still get to dance to Rave music in my living room – it’s great music to exercise to. I still have my passion for a variety of music and although I missed my chance to become a professional street dancer. I have found another way to help fill the dream chalice. I want to travel more and make friends with people who want to be around me because of me, and not for what I can give them i.e. money when I have/had it or other superficial bullshit.

I have ‘broken through’ to the other side( maybe not in the way old Jim Morrison meant) but I have.

 – bit of a tune I just couldn’t resist putting in.

How did I do this? I hung up my glad rags and got ‘comfortable with being uncomfortable’ ( thanks Jillian Michaels for that quote) and I became the person I was probably born to be.  I do different things these days. I now get to read more, I have money to save up for my wedding and holidays. I like to do things like go to the cinema and ice skating and roller skating. Pubs bore me and so do drunk people  especially if I’m not. Except of course me, I am never bored of a drunk me. These days  I’m more of a punch-drunk character. I choose where  I roam and I find myself in much more worthy and rewarding places. Don’t get me wrong, I won’t turn  Dionysus away from my door all the time. I love a few cheeky cocktails! So he will need to leave his vino back at the grape vineyard.  I do have an addictive nature and I am on heavy medication, so I drink – as safely as possible. The initial euphoria is all I ever wanted from drink or drugs and that is all I want and need now. I know all about the chase and the chase ain’t for me any longer. I am thankful that I’m not even 34 years old yet and I’ve learned huge lessons. Now,  I have more ambition, respect, love and rather grand shit happening in my life.

I love the people who are in my life now. I love the people I connect with now. I also know they love me for me. Quirks and all.

I know we all go through shit and I am in no position to judge. Hell, if someone popped round to my house with some seriously good drugs I may be tempted to say -why not? I might not. I’m only fucking human… haha. The point being:  I would think about if I really wanted to take it or not. Weigh up the pros and cons and not become a con so quickly. Such a bad pun -I’m taking it- it is mine. 

These days I’m a rebel in other ways -I still manage to piss people off with my liberal views and non-conformist attitude to life. I realise that part of me was really me all the time. I didn’t need drugs and booze to be different or alternative. I already am. I have walked away from that life with multiple labels(inherited or not)  and I’ve been through the bullshit. I still have to put up with bullshit. These days I tend to party in the light,  in a world of sunshine and with the wind blowing. It’s a fresh kind of life, a pure ongoing festival kind of life.  Easy and breezy and I’m content with it.