Hang-Overrated
It's Friday morning, 8:00AM, and I’ve already taken three Advils. By 9:30AM I’m sitting in lecture with the shakes. It’s 10:00AM and I need to get out of this classroom and back into bed.What is going on? I’ve got a hangover all right, and it its not what you’d think. I didn’t go crazy or get belligerent the night before. I was even in bed by a decent hour. This all stemmed from casual drinks on a Thursday night: three, maybe four tops.It sounds ridiculous to say, but at twenty-one, I’m getting old. We all are.Gone are the days in first year when vodka was consumed like water, and the lack of a hangover the next morning made you wonder if it really came from a tap and not from Russia. No chase? No problem. Just drink it straight. There was a level of utmost invincibility and perseverance that probably would have been better applied to schoolwork.I look back on my hangovers of the past – from last year even – and laugh. What a breeze. Now if I drink I am essentially ruined the next day, out of commission no matter how little was consumed the night before. Can’t even think about getting anything done – can’t think at all, really.It's a sad truth; a reminder that the insouciant carelessness of youth is truly coming to an end. Responsibility and judiciousness are actually tangible and unavoidable. Every morning is a reminder of the ephemerality of the night before.Admittedly, I always had it relatively easy when it came to hangovers. Never too bad or uncontrollable; nothing a cold shower couldn’t fix. Perhaps that's what made the fourth year hangovers all the more brutal; like walking into a wall of cold, hard reality, in addition to my already pounding headache.I take some comfort knowing I’m not the only one feeling this way. Former jovial and jocular drinking companions from the night before have been spotted as bemused, yet requisitely dutiful, denizens of the morning, with delicate hands pressing firmly against their temples, questioning: “Why? Why is this happening?”I scoffed when sage elders said they couldn’t drink like they used to, thinking that that could never happen to me. It happened. Faster than I would have liked. I was warned. I didn’t listen.To all the youths: enjoy it while it lasts. Relish your hangovers of today, because they will be worse tomorrow.Yours creatively,Veronica Saroli, Fashion Editor Images: Film Fanatic (Breakfast at Tiffany's)
