BIRTHDAY | RELATIONSHIPS | LIFE

The Best Part Of Turning 19 Was The Hat

But it was as fleeting as the men in my life

My birthday is on Christmas Day. I never had a birthday party. The holiday overshadows anyone born around that time of year.

But the one birthday that stands out was my 19th birthday.

Even though I’d been drinking since my early teens, it would mean I’d be of legal age to drink in Nova Scotia, Canada.

And able to buy alcohol and not depend on others getting it for me. Of no longer lying about my age and sneaking into bars.

The year leading up to that milestone birthday had been a rough one. My life summed up by the song, Torn Between Two Lovers by Mary MacGregor. A hit song from the previous year.

The month before my 19th birthday, a huge argument with Barry, the guy I’d been seeing while still with my 36-year-old boyfriend Adam, left my place where he’d been living to go stay with his friends in the city.

I had tried to make it work with Barry because I wanted to end my relationship with Adam. A relationship that had started out so positive at 17.

Life with Adam was one of breaking me. Of my doing things I didn’t want to do, just to please him. Things like inviting my younger sister into his bed.

Soon as Barry left me, I went back to Adam.

I’d been living off unemployment insurance since the end of summer at the diner where I’d worked. Needing to find another job, I joined my sister and started working at the local fish plant. To say I hated the job would be an understatement. My only goal was to stick it out for the four months needed to qualify for unemployment insurance benefits.

I was working at the fish plant that Christmas I turned 19.

The hat was also the highlight of that birthday. And I made sure to let Adam know how I came to own the hat.

One day after my shift at the fish plant, I caught a ride to town to call my father to pick me up. But before I could call him, the guys hanging out on the bridge spotted me. John, the guy who I’d given my virginity to, saw me and asked, “Where the hell you been?”

“Around.” I smirked. Sill dressed in my work clothes, smelling like cooked fish and hating my unwashed, greasy hair.

“Still with that old man?” He chuckled, referring to my relationship with Adam.

“Maybe,” I said, playing it cool, having no intention of telling him how terrible things were between Adam and me. Nor did I tell him about Barry and that breakup. How I was a failure in love. Determined to keep my pain hidden. I shot back, “At least he is a man.”

“Yeah, right. Old as a dinosaur.”

The other guys in the crowd laughed.

I pointed to Dan. “Where’d you get the hat?”

“Stole it from a girl last night.”

“Bet you did,” I said, trying to grab it off his head. “’Cause no one would give you anything,” I said.

He leaned in, whispered. “Except you, Barbara.”

“Oh, yeah, right,” I said, loud enough for the others to hear. “Maybe a blow-job, to rid myself of you.”

Everyone roared. It was just like the old times we’d had together in the park.

“Come to the tavern with us,” John said.

“Ah… I don’t know. I should go home. Change my clothes.”

“Fuck that.” Lenny motioned to the car. “Just come.”

“Okay. What the hell,” I said.

We ended up at the Bridgewater Tavern. Even though I wasn’t yet of legal age for another couple of weeks, the guy at the bar didn’t request my ID and I got served beer after beer.

I stopped worrying about my appearance after a few drinks.

We stayed until the place closed.

Lenny drove me back to my parents’ home. Before exiting, I grabbed the hat off Dan’s head, and raced to the house. Lenny backed around to leave, and Dan yelled out the window, “Give it back! Give me my hat!”

“No fucking way.” I stood by the front door, waving the hat in the air. “You owe me.”

“Yeah,” John leaned out the window, pushing Dan off to the side, shouting, “For all the head she gave you!”

Dan wrestled John from the window. “My hat! Give it back!”

“No!” I placed it on my head and stepped inside the house.

I wore the brown suede floppy-brimmed hat all the time. Even in the birthday picture above with Adam and his usual straight-faced, serious self, with me smiling as if I was at a party, having the time of my life. I acted super happy to prove to Adam that I didn’t need him in my life.

Didn’t want to be the clinging vine he’d once called me.

Hiding my true feelings, especially my sadness, was the only way I knew how to survive.

What was ironic after turning 19 was that I slowed down on my drinking. Adam was on a Coast Guard ship for the winter months. I spent more and more time alone creating art and writing.

I tried to figure out why I had so many blackouts and couldn’t handle my drinking like my other friends. I was determined to fix my life. Determined to give Adam another chance.

While he was gone, I wanted to quit cigarettes and stop drinking.

But I was young and could only be alone for so long.

On a cold winter night, I went out driving with the guys from town. I had no problem hanging out with the guys, being like one of them, instead of a girl looking for a boyfriend.

One had a bag of weed and kept rolling joints.

We bought booze from a nearby bootlegger.

In the cold, dark winter night, we drove on dirt roads, smoking joint after joint. Drinking beer after beer. The car filled with smoke. The music blasted. We laughed and had a good time.

As the gas gauge neared empty, we headed to my place — my building out back on my parents’ property.

The guys still didn’t trust my parents wouldn’t call the cops on them like my mother had done years earlier when they used to sneak into my building.

We drove past my family home and parked down the road to hoof it back to my place.

Before exiting the car, we finished smoking another joint.

One guy got out, slipped on the ice under the light blanket of snow. He got back on his feet, brushing snow off his jeans. Slipped again. The same thing happened to the rest of us when we got out of the car.

It was then we realized how stoned we were, trying to keep our balance on the icy road. We slid. Staggered. Slipped and fell. Laughing all the way while helping each other up.

Once inside my building, I was in the mood for loud music. I put on the only Ted Nugent album I owned. I’d purchased it because I loved one song: Cat Scratch Fever. We smoked another joint.

The floor of the room tilted. I thought I’d slide to the other side.

One of the guys threw up. We laughed as we watched the vomit spread on the floor.

No one bothered to clean it up.

The room spun as fast as the record, and the floor kept tilting. I slipped away.

I awoke hours later, alone, slumped in a corner, my hat gone.

Pissed off at myself for losing the hat. Pissed off for blacking out.

Pissed off I had no idea if I’d still functioned after the last thing I remembered.

I’d lost more than just the hat.

I sobered up went back to work at the job I hated. Other workers told me how lucky I was working in the kitchen. The best part of the plant. The fish arrived chopped, cooked, and ready for packaging. I didn’t have to handle the raw fish — cutting and deboning. Other women couldn’t understand why I didn’t like the job.

One day I could take it no longer. In tears, I walked out. Stuck my thumb out and hitched a ride back to the town near my home.

I walked the streets crying.

My parents found me and took me to the doctor. The doctor admitted to the local hospital to start me back on the antidepressants I had stopped taking when I thought my life was working out and that I didn’t need pills to make me feel okay.

The pills that had left me numb and emotionless, with no highs or lows. Just a flat-line feeling. I had stopped taking Elavil, the antidepressant, in order to feel something. Then I felt too much.

After several days in the hospital, I left, still lost in a fog, but lying to everyone, telling them I was much better while inside I screamed with questions about how to survive the rest of my life with my broken self.

A note from my doctor saved the employer from firing me, but I didn’t celebrate.

I dragged myself to work each day. Did it for the money. Tried to ignore my feelings. Tried to be strong. Tried to be like everyone else.

In the spring, Adam returned from his months away at work. We had a couple of good weeks. Then I went back to Barry. It seemed I couldn’t be with one of them without wanting the other.

I’d been a smiling young woman on my 19th birthday. It had come with such promise. But like most else in my life, that smiling young woman wouldn’t stick around for long. Nothing stuck with me for long. Especially the men I tried to hang on to.

My 19th birthday highlighted part of that long journey of looking for love in all the wrong places. Of seeking answers in a bottle.

Eventually, wisdom would come and I was able to quit drinking for good and stay with just one man.

Neither of those men turned out to be Adam or Barry.

Barbara Carter Artist and writer with a focus on healing from childhood trauma, alcohol addiction, and living her best authentic life.

Likes to take walks, read, watch TV dramas, and practice Qi-gong, and work on her memoir series BARBARA By The BAY.