Fireworks - COMMITTING - Summary of Carry On, Warrior: The Power of Embracing Your Messy, Beautiful Life - Book Summary

Summary of Carry On, Warrior: The Power of Embracing Your Messy, Beautiful Life - Book Summary (2016)

Part II. COMMITTING

Chapter 11. Fireworks

I met Craig on July Fourth, 2000, at an all-day bar crawl in Washington, D.C. A bar crawl is an event during which hundreds of people travel together from one bar to the next, drinking heavily at each one. The purpose of the traveling is to make the drunk people feel like they are accomplishing something, in addition to the usual liver and reputation damage. During this event, entire D.C. blocks were closed off from traffic and the streets were packed with guys and girls holding plastic cups and performing for each other.

It was just 10:00 a.m. when I first saw Craig, so I’d had only three or seven beers and I was still lookin’ good. I stood on a curb with one of my oldest and best friends, Dana, and we scanned the sea of people together. I saw Craig and thought, “Hmmmm.” He was tan and laughing. Craig is always tan and laughing.

I pinched Dana. She knew him, I remembered that. Craig was a year ahead of Dana and me in high school. Dana grew up next door to him, and she and her friends used to meet at her house to peek out the window and watch Craig mow the lawn shirtless. Dana’s mommy, whom I love, told me later that she and her friends used to do the exact same thing at bridge club.

So Dana and I walked over to say hi. She introduced us. Craig smiled real big and his eyes squinched up like they do and my stomach did that flip-flop thing. I was petrified. I am petrified of all boys, always have been, always will be. Craig was gorgeous and wearing blue and smiling, and I thought, I’m going to die. We talked for a while. I have no idea what we talked about, because I was thinking about looking hot and cool at the same time, and this is really difficult after seven drinks in 95 degree weather. Our conversation ended too soon. My friends found me and his found him. We said bye and smiled at each other. It was way too early and awkward and bright to ask for numbers.

We went our separate ways to attend to the important business of drinking our weight in beer and doing regrettable things.

Then: TWELVE hours later.

It’s 10:00 p.m. I’m on the dance floor at the eighth and final bar of the day. I’ve just finished flailing around with my girls to “I Will Survive.” Now I find myself dancing with a boy who tells me he’s going to call me the following day so I can go on his boat. I remember thinking two things:

#1. You so do not have a boat.

#2. Must think of fake phone number fast. Why can’t I remember what a number is?

I look over behind the bar and see Craig standing there, ordering a beer. The bartender appears to be flirting with him. I am grateful the bartender is a boy.

I think: Oh God Oh God Oh God.

I abandon lying boat man and sneak off the dance floor.

I stand off by myself, drinking my beer, trying to look both available and busy. In case Craig is watching, I smile and wave to imaginary people on the dance floor who are neither waving nor smiling at me. It’s important to feel popular when you are nervous.

Craig was watching me. As a matter of fact, he had spent the past half-hour mentally formulating a plan to convince me to come home with him. He predicted that it would take a while to get me to leave all of my friends, especially since we’d just met, but he was hopeful. We would dance, get to know each other, maybe go for a walk through D.C. and order some late night pizza. Then he’d ask if I wanted to see his new house.

He walked over to me, handed me a beer, and opened with:

Hey.

Oh, hey.

Having fun?

Yep, you?

Yeah. Getting tired, though. Thinking about heading home soon.

Kay. Let’s go.

He had wasted a lot of time planning.

So we excitedly hailed a cab together, but when we arrived at his house, we discovered that neither of us had any money. So Craig asked the cabbie if he could leave me in the car for collateral while he went in and found some cash.

I remember thinking: Brilliant plan. He’s hot and smart.

Unfortunately, when Craig got inside, all his buddies were still up partying, and he got a little distracted. Actually, somebody handed him a beer, and he promptly forgot all about me and the cabbie, which I couldn’t really blame him for because after ten minutes of sitting in the cab, I couldn’t remember what I was doing there either. In my drinking days, I was a lot like Dori from Finding Nemo: every moment was a brand-new adventure because I had no clue what preceded it. So I just figured that the cabbie was my new friend and he needed to talk. We chatted for about twenty minutes. Then somebody inside said to Craig, “Hey, who was that chick you were talking to at the last bar?” Craig thought, Hmmmm. Something about that question is ringing some sort of bell. And then he REMEMBERED me in the cab! Isn’t that romantic??? And he RAN out to get me. Then he gave the cabbie his money and rescued me, and it all felt very much like a fairy tale.

Happiness is low expectations paired with a short-term memory problem.

Craig apologized profusely for forgetting about me. I told him no worries, I understood completely. To make him feel better, I admitted that I had totally forgotten what I was doing in the cab in the first place. I also added that I may have forgotten his name a little bit. I later asked Craig if these admissions had felt like red flags in regard to my character. He said no, he just thought, “This girl is cool. We have a lot in common.” The week before he had woken up early Sunday morning to find himself sprawled across the back seat of a cab at the National Zoo. He had a feeling I might be the kind of girl who understood problems like that. He was right. I was just that kind of girl.

So we smiled at each other and held hands and went into his house.