Eeyore's Birthday Party

Chronicles of Cringe: Episode 3

Without fail, Austin hippies gather each spring at Pease Park for Eeyore’s annual birthday celebration. The clinically depressed donkey’s birthday party has been held every year since 1964. There’s delicious lore associated with the annual gathering, and you can read about the event's history here. But for today’s episode of Chronicles of Cringe, the above information will suffice. So, in honor of my brother in SSRI’s from the Hundred Acre Wood and the impending festivities of the weekend, I sacrifice every last shred of my perceived togetherness and offer you one of my most wince-worthy moments.

Photo by Farel Yesha on Unsplash

It was late April of 2010, and my life was an absolute train wreck. I’d just gotten my license, but my friend Amy drove the group of us to Pease Park for the infamous Eeyore’s Birthday celebration. On arrival, we took in the whimsical atmosphere, and I cursed my parents’ names for the cup I had to pee in come Monday. Sadly, I would not be indulging in the devil’s lettuce alongside my peers.

I’d been caught getting high at school several times. But I didn’t do it because I thought I was cool. In fact, I knew I wasn’t cool. The sad truth was that being under that blissful blanket of earthy influence was my only reprieve from wanting to die. Every moment of my life had felt like low-grade torture until I got stoned for the first time in the woods with my first love. I’ll never forget that day—it was like I’d found the age-old answer to the riddle of being human. I told him as much, and he just stared at me like I was speaking another language.

I heard once that if drugs and alcohol don’t do anything for you, they can’t do anything to you. From the jump, substances did everything for me. Even the stuff I didn’t even know needed doing. Like an itch you don’t notice until it’s scratched, and then you’re like, “How the fuck did I walk around this Goddamn itchy my whole life?” It was never just fun for me. But for him, it was. So, I learned to keep the “I’ve found God” thoughts to myself. Because apparently, normal people didn't feel that way about pot.

But I sure did. “This,” I thought. “This is what’s going to help me be a real person.” It’s no wonder I was carried out to sea so quickly, and it didn’t take long for my parents to notice how close I was to drowning. They weren’t even mad, just genuinely scared. They began drug testing me in hopes that some well-defined boundaries might snap me out of the hazy, delusional daydream I existed in.

And when I say delusional, I mean delusional. Here’s where it gets truly embarrassing…

Avatar, the one with the blue people, had just come out, and to say I was obsessed would be an understatement. Maybe it was because I saw the movie stoned, but more than likely, it was because I had stopped my meds cold turkey the month before, and I was pretty sure God was speaking to me through the CGI, telling me that this is how the earth could have been: connected, communal, filled with magic. If only humans hadn’t fucked it all up with capitalism and industrialization. Said the privileged white girl who never wanted for anything a day in her life.

From December to March, I saw the movie seven times—five times in theatres, twice in IMAX 3D. But the film seemed to hit me in a way that the people around me struggled to relate to. I wanted to live in Home Tree. I wanted to plug into the earth around me. I wanted to buzz within a network of beings with whom I was irrevocably bonded on a cellular, spiritual level. The closest I’d gotten was hitting a gravity bong at a Halloween party.

That is, until I found the chat rooms. The online community of Avatar enthusiasts was just as nerdy as one might imagine. We spoke in Na’vi, a fictional language created by James Cameron for the film. We discussed plans to relocate to the coast of Fiji, where we could live off the land. We studied the iridescent, and very fake, flora and fauna, as well as the elaborate animal life. It was truly insane.

And then there was Peter. Peter was in his 20s (allegedly), but he didn’t seem to mind that I was still in high school. We met in the chat rooms after my first love and I broke up over winter break, and we’d been private messaging for months.

I’d chat with him while I drank alone in my bedroom, and he’d express his concern. Even creepy men on the internet were worried for me. He said he thought I might be an alcoholic. Ironically, the first person who clocked my malady had never even been in the same room as me. I shook it off.

The morning of the gathering at Pease Park, my online lover texted me:

Peter: Kaltxì! Have fun today at the festival party thing!

Me: I’ll try. My parents haven’t drug tested me yet for the month, so I’m shit out of luck there.

Peter: What do you mean?

Me: I won’t have time to buy synthetic piss, and anything I smoke this weekend will come up in my test on Monday.

Peter: Well, maybe just go enjoy your friend’s company! Be one with nature. Connect to the earth around you.

Me: You know what helps with that?

Peter: What?

Me: Drugs

Peter: Lol. Oel ngati kameie, my love.

I didn't respond. It was all starting to lose its charm. The fantasy world and the online lover.

When we arrived at the park, Amy surprised me with a 12-pack of beer. “Here you go, bitch! I knew you wouldn’t be able to smoke today, so I brought you some backup.”

“Oh my GOD, you’re my literal hero.”

We made our way across the big green lawn, taking in the colorful sights and sounds. Families danced to live music, and children gleefully showed off their whimsical face paint. But that wasn’t the vibe we came for.

Up the hill in the shade of the old pecan trees, a debauched iteration of the gathering was off to a raucous start. Folks of all ages passed pipes, shared flasks, and swayed to the music of the drum circles. I’d never seen anything like it, and I was in love.

By 3 p.m., I was six beers deep. My spiritual proclivities, in the form of fantastical blue beings, began to take over with increasing insistence as each slosh of liquid joy splashed down my esophagus. Warmth and something close to religion pooled in my belly.

The essence of life flowed through me, and I began proselytizing to the group. “It’s just so beautiful. We are all one. And the earth! The Earth just carries us. Mother Eywa… I mean, Mother Earth watches over us and provides us with everything we will ever need. And do we even say thank you?”

Amy shook her head and laughed at me. The rest ignored me.

That’s when I saw my ex at a nearby picnic blanket, talking to a pretty girl from my biology class. They were laughing and smiling, and both seemed to be an acceptable degree of intoxicated for a Saturday afternoon. Pussies. I chugged another three beers.

I began stuffing empty beer bottles in my giant purse as I went. At some point, a guy from my school asked if he could have one, and I told him in a slurred voice why that simply wasn’t possible. “It’s all f’r meee. M’mom won’t lemme smoke weed. She says I’m an addick. Psssshh. So I gotta drink all thish beer… by m’self… instead.”

He gawked at me. “Whatever you say, dude.”

Around beer number twelve, I decided I should discuss the importance of saving the planet again, loud enough for my ex to hear, just so he didn’t miss how well I was doing.

“Th’ earth… isssooo full’a maagic, y’know? An’ we—we jusht… abandoned her, man. We gotta… we gotta treasurrre her… protect’er. S-save th’… the ocean…” I began to cry.

“Anna, what’s the deal?” I wasn’t sure when my ex walked over, but he now stood above me, genuine concern etched in his kind face.

“The earthhh. S’dying.”

“Alrighty, let’s get up.” He hauled me to my feet. “I’m going to drive you home.” The girl he was there with rolled her eyes at the scene as he tried to steady me.

“Fiiiiiine,” I say. He started to lead me away towards the exit of the park. “Waittt!” I shrieked. I can’t take all of this home, silly.”

Then, without any shame or self-awareness, I dumped my purse full of empty beer bottles onto the lush lap of Mother Earth. The clank of glass on glass on dirt seemed to silence the crowd of people I’d been ranting to about the sanctity of the environment. They looked on in disbelief.

“So much for ‘save the whales.’ Pathetic,” the pretty girl from bio said.

I sobbed as he guided me to the car. Somewhere in the back of my mind, I knew how messy this was; how out of control. But I was too distracted by the gnawing pain in my chest that threatened to pull me into the depths of hell. This always happened when I drank. So why did I keep doing it? It took me years to realize I never had a choice in the matter.

When we got to the car, I climbed into my ex’s lap. “Anna, what are you doing?”

“Misssh you.”

He pushed me off and into the passenger seat. “You need to get your shit together, dude. You’re absolutely flailing.”

And he was right. I was flailing. I would be flailing for the next six odd years. But when I finally stumbled into recovery rooms, it was suggested that I seek out something bigger than me to keep me sober, since I’d always done such a shitty job of it myself. I looked and looked, and what I found felt a lot like Home Tree; a lot like a network of connectivity between all living beings; a lot like a deep, personal connection to the earth and the sacred community around me.

So maybe I wasn’t as delusional as I thought.

No, I definitely was.