I Found God at a Party. She Looks Just Like Me.

 Do you ever feel like you’re talking to god when you’re at a concert? I asked my lover on the drive back to my house from a restaurant in Greenpoint. I was thinking about the warehouse party I went to a couple weeks ago, consumed with intense thoughts of bodies sweating underneath red lights, barely able to see shapes I recognize as human through the fog. I’ve been partying every weekend ever since I moved to New York 3 years ago, but I still get nervous every time I buy a ticket. Every party means so much to me. The first time I recognized the dance floor as a temple was when I went to see Yaeji at a Papi Juice party at Elsewhere. Jersey club legend Uniique was there, spinning tracks while bodies of all colors and sizes and abilities melded into a force so strong it kept the night going into the wee hours of the morning. The party was lighthearted and carefree, gay in the most dated sense of the word. It also was just straight up queer as fuck. I didn’t know I had been struggling with where to place my sexuality until that night. As I danced and watched the people around me ebb and flow with the music I developed crushes on women, transgender folks, men in mesh crop tops and bleached hair, and those who were playing with their gender like it was something that could change as quickly as a childs interest in Bratz dolls. That party was the first night I realized I could show up to the club with the big questions about identity that I was struggling with, and I would be welcomed to the dance floor with open arms. Every party after that became a quest to find the light in the darkness I felt whenever I woke up alone in my bed that didn’t have a frame. 

I know a lot about chasing highs. I’ve been doing it ever since I got drunk for the first time when I was 13. When I started getting drunk enough to feel okay with doing cocaine, I loved the way my lips went numb from whatever the drugs were cut with. I loved that I felt like the world was mine for the taking. The realization that the liquids and the powders were pulling me into a world that I didn’t belong in didn’t come until I hit the club scene in New York and finally learned what it feels like to breathe without a stuffy nose. 

When I relapsed a few months ago, my friend's boyfriend said he doesn’t understand why I go out so much anyways. I party because each weekend presents me with an opportunity to explore who I am now and how that person can become who I want to be in the future. Realistically, I’m an alcoholic drug addict who is new to sobriety. I’m an out of work freelance fashion assistant. I’m struggling with dating men who don’t know who they are or what they want. I’m a bisexual who doesn’t feel validated in her sexuality because I’ve never dated women. I party because dancing is the closest I’ve come to feeling like I belong in my body. It’s the closest I’ve come to feeling like I belong in a world where I can feel secure enough in who I am to take up space. I party because I’m an addict, chasing the high that comes with brushing against other sweaty bodies, the only high I’ve ever come across that doesn’t lead to crippling depression and a comedown so horrendous it leads to suicidal ideation. I’ve done enough opiates to know what it feels like to drown. I’ve done enough psychedelics to know what it’s like to live out fantasies that are more vivid than dreams. I’ve done enough benzos to know what it’s like to forget your name and live in a black cloud, isolated in your calm. I’ve done enough coke to know what it’s like to die a little bit and come to, staring at yourself in the bathroom mirror wondering who the hell you became. This high is an entirely different kind, one that doesn’t fade when the music stops. It’s a high that grows stronger as the night goes on. It’s a high that is sustainable because there’s always going to be more of the drug we call music. 

I think of a concert more like a rollercoaster, my lover says to me, I look around at the crowd and let the music carry me to wherever it needs me to go. I showed up to the warehouse party at 3AM with these thoughts in mind. I had just been to a concert in Philly with my lover, and I was tired. My body wasn’t, but my mind was and I took a second to wonder why. I’m tired of lying about my day count to my sponsor. I’m tired of carrying the innermost thoughts of my best friend. Tired of pretending I’m strong enough to carry her baggage as well as my own. Tired of pretending I’m not triggered by Rue’s behavior in Euphoria. Tired of pretending that I’m okay with casual sex. Tired of reducing myself down to a stereotype. Nothing to see here, just another garden variety alcoholic. Tired of taking on different shapes throughout the day, knowing none of them are who I really am. I check this exhaustion in with my coat and head into the world the DJ has created, a world where very little is certain besides the fact the music will be banging. 

I leave around 6 and pause to take a look at the bodies gathered in front of the DJ booth before I walk out of the abandoned apartment building that served as tonight's venue. Outside, the sun is rising. Inside, the crowd has curled in on itself, creating a space that looks as promising as a mother’s womb. I brought all my anxiety and fear and sadness and longing to the dance floor tonight, confident I would be transformed into the version of myself I hope to be when I grow up. What this city taketh, it giveth in spades to those who are strong enough to look at their pain and say “I see you.” We deserve to bring this pain to the dance floor, to crack our hearts wide open and let the higher power we seek every time we go out take hold. I deserve to examine my feelings and honor them as they come, and if I dance hard enough I’m able to recognize where I carry these feelings in my body and set them free into the dank, dark room where other strangers can latch onto the feelings they feel called to before releasing them back into the space we chose to share for the night. As the beat goes on I’m reminded that no one can be the same after 6 hours of techno. Even the song we were so sure we knew at one point morphs into an entirely different track. Feelings change and so do people. I think of what my friend told me when I left the job that kept me sober. It's all ephemeral. Nothing ever is at it once was. I’m not the same person I was an hour ago. 

I blow a kiss to the friend I made in the smoking section and he yells something back at me that I can’t hear. All I hear is the boom of the bass, throbbing and pulsing so hard I can feel it in my chest. Babe, there’s no re-entry, the door girl says to me before I walk down the stairs into the morning air. I spend a beat thinking about all the random doors I’ve walked in and out of since I started partying, each one leading me deeper and deeper into the self I lost touch with long ago. Maybe I never lost touch with her. Maybe she’s been here all along, hiding in a warehouse in Brooklyn waiting for me to come home.