Legal Drinking Age

Okay, exactly how old is Lauren? Have any of you thought about that as much as Sophie has?

Count the days. Lauren signed up, basic training (how many weeks), then Afghanistan for 18 months.

Right after high school.

How old is Lauren?

Old enough to die, but is she old enough to drink?

And Lauren's ever been stopped when? Or Rosalie? Or Bella, when she was thir-fucking-teen?

They card at the campus pizza place, do they? Or at a bar the military boys and girls frequent off-base?

They do, right? They have to.

Right?

My, my, my. And NONE of my classmates, IN HIGH SCHOOL, never got drunk, nor high, nor had smex. Never.

"I'm not old enough to drink."

Uh, huh. Okay.

Hm, hm, hm.

"This message does not condone the underage use of alcohol nor drugs, and all models portrayed in Ridden, etc, are of legal ages in the countries represented."

Um. Yeah. Like Rosalie was SO 18 before her 18th birthday, right, when she took Bella on her first and second 'ride,' ... a month before her 18th birthday.

And Lauren, throughout high school, and kindergarden, when her father raped her, was of legal consenting adult age, too. Just like all the fanfics that say 'NC-17' but don't get banned on ffn ...

... except mine.

I'm not bitter. *Sigh*

Your age, my dear reader, is your age, and your choices are your choices. You choose not to drink now because of your age? Okay. You can also choose not to drink, or engage in hot, wild smex (ooh! hot, wild lesbiotic school smex!), after you are 'of age,' too. Your choices are yours to make.

Just like I chose differently, and that makes me wrong and bad? Well, yes, actually, it does. If you are good for abstaining, that makes me bad for my licentiousness, or there is no moral compass.

Let me be clear, here: my bad choices DO NOT give you permission to feel guilty NOR do they give you permission to make bad choices, but they DO give you permission to see your choices as choices regardless of age or of any other constraints you impose. Your choices are your choices, and your constraints are your constraints, and you choose your constraints and you choose your choices, with AND despite your constraints.

See?

The world is a simple, simple place.

And then there comes along you, and the choices you make, and the only complications come when you meta-justify your choices. Then life gets complicated.

Because any justification can be counter-justified, but "I choose not to drink now." "Why?" "Because that's my choice." "Oh."

That cannot be countered. They either respect you, and your choices, or they don't, and then it's very, very clear.

But "I'm not of age to drink." "Well, I wasn't, either, love; here, have this mickey finn, you'll like this! Just try it, I did, and you wanna be cool like me, right?"

Ew, now you can't say 'no,' because your choice isn't a choice, it's a dependency on a constraint that doesn't hold when somebody else takes it away, AND makes you uncool now that you have no constraint to defend your 'choice.'

When, in reality, you don't have to defend your choices, ever, to anyone, when they are freely chosen, and that is a true position of power, because nobody can take away your choices.

But they can attack (successfully) your justifications.

It's the whole thing about superstition and the greatest superstition is 'I'm not like that.'

'I'm not gay.' 'I'm not outspoken,' 'I'm not confident,' 'I'm not beautiful.' 'I'm not brave,' 'I'm not a good writer,' 'I'm not ever going to be happy,' 'I'll always be alone' (another 'I'm not' in actuality)

All these lies I so successfully tell myself, and they are just stories I made up to justify how I am right now, because 'I'm not ...' how I want to be, but can't see myself as being.

Another lie: 'can't' Can't really is 'refuse to see'

"I can't see myself as being."

is a very different assertion than

"I refuse to see myself as being."

The former is a show-stopper. The latter is an obstinacy. And once I realize my stubbornness, I can just give up:

"But how can I be like that?"

And once you ask 'how' (whereas before you said 'I can't'), then it's game over for that lie, because then, when you ask how, then three million ways, some fantastic, some simple, present themselves to you of just how you can be how you couldn't possibly be before.

Because, sitting in class right now is a boy or a girl who IS being what you AREN'T being, but you CAN'T be that way, you've told yourself that over and over again. But that boy or girl was born, too, just like you, and they made choices that led them exactly to where they are.

And it's 'right' or 'wrong' where they are: drinking, smoking, smexing, or ... honor roll, multimillionaire at fourteen, married with kids, with her lover ... hiking to Alaska or Canada. Whatever, but there it is.

Drinking isn't an age, it's a choice. Everything isn't an 'isn't' or a 'can't.' It's a choice, and you choose that, if you want that, and you don't choose that, if you don't want that.

So, yeah. Just like happiness, like everything else: it doesn't depend on circumstances, like age, it depends on ... nothing. You choose it. Mother Teresa was happy, and I'm not, and I have a washer/drier, and she didn't, and I've had tons of smex, and she didn't. Why was she happy, and I'm not?

Because she chose happiness: she chose to be exactly who she was.

Because I choose to be exactly who I'm not, and I choose to be sad about it.

Um, I think I'll have that drink now.