When I return from an evening out, I always fall asleep in the uber. Every time, without fail. Sometimes I fall asleep in the uber going to wherever “out” is that night and my friends all get mad at me for it. They call me “tired” or “asleep” or “wake up, bitch” and I’m like, listen, if you wanted me to stay awake, we would have been leaving at 9:30pm, getting home by 11, pizza by 11:30, bed by 12. THAT’S a night I can get behind. But instead my friends choose to leave for a bar at 11:30pm and return at 2 in the morning, and I’m like, sorry SWEETHEARTS, those are sleepy hours! And I want to be clear: I love going out with my friends. My friends know how to Get. Down. But ultimately I’m a sleepy bitch. And I cannot help that sleepy bitches get sleepy when the sleepy hours arrive.
I haven’t had many of those nights over the last year and a half due to Lady Corona, but last week, I found myself in the back of an uber at 1am, eyelids heavy-ing. It was sort of sweet, like nostalgia, “remember how pissed my friends would get when they had to wake me up at the drop off?” This time, I was alone. No one to agitate except the poor uber driver who announced “we’re here” pretty loudly because he saw I was dozing off. It made me miss “the before times,” as most things do these days.
But I don’t want to talk about nostalgia or TBT (The Before Times NOT TBT in the colloquial sense). I want to talk about TGHR (The Going Home Ritual, obviously). Mine seems to be falling asleep in cabs (my mom is panicking as she reads this), but then the real GHR is the requisite “text me when you get home” command that my friends and I share when we leave each other. Most people don’t usually do it (I don’t think I usually do it. I used to have to do it every time I went anywhere in high school because sweet mother made me. She would call no less than 7 times if I didn’t (she worried!) and at one point, she gave in and said she’d make it easy on me and my brother: we could just send a “z” when we get there so it wouldn’t take as long. It took the same amount of time but it’s the thought that counts). When people remember, it is reassuring. It’s also reassuring to send the text myself. It’s comforting to know that people care about whether you got home ok. And also, it feels sort of dramatic.
A journey home from a night out usually takes 20-30 minutes, right (depending on where you are)? Yet without fail, every single time, my friends and I say, “text me when you get home” as if this quick trip is a treacherous voyage across a stormy sea. Maybe it’s because most of us were socialized as women, maybe it’s because it’s a big city and you never know what can happen, maybe it’s because of past experiences, but there’s a shared knowledge we have that when you’re here, you’re safe, when you’re home, you’re safe, and the in between is uncertain. Of course, that’s not always true; that’s a blanket statement. But what I appreciate about TGHR is the level of care in it. There’s an unspoken rule that none of us learned yet all of us know: “if we’re going out, I got you and you got me from the minute we leave to the minute we get home.” It’s protective and considerate and, yes, dramatic but, yes, comforting.
Maybe I’m just a little neurotic. In therapy, I’ve been working on beating myself up less, so I actually won’t undercut this whole thing. I think it’s lovely to practice TGHR. It’s a language of care that seems to come so naturally to so many people. It kinda floors me, you know?! It makes me emotional, for the thought that goes into it and the reasons we have to do it. And mostly, it makes me wanna know if my friends got home ok.
I try to tell people I have once I’ve woken up in the uber.
Was this one too emo!?! Maybe. I’m on my period this week so that might be why (*sees subscriber numbers immediately plummet*), jk if you can’t handle period talk, you’ve come to the WRONG newsletter, honey!!!
Let me know what GHRs you have and Mom, I promise I will try my darndest to stay awake in more ubers!!!!!!!!!!
Here’s a pic from the night in question! Clearly a rager.
And some bathroom graffiti from the same night that I thought was stupid and funny. This guy might not piss and tell but we ALL know that I DO!!!!!!!!!
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