After spending the rest of the weekend feeling sorry for myself, I am surprisingly looking forward to returning to the Academy. I want to get back, settle into the routine, and forget the weekend ever happened. Once I return, I immediately try to fall back into Academy life, but I am surrounded by reminders of the relationship. Saved letters from my girlfriend. Her picture on my desk. Little pieces of a future I thought I was going to have. I package everything up and try to throw it away, but I can’t. Instead, I decide to mail it all back to her and never look back. Everyone is sharing stories about their incredible weekends and what it was like to experience freedom for the first time. I hate having to explain that I got dumped. At this point in the year, most of the high school relationships have already failed, so at least I have plenty of people to commiserate with.

My friend and I decide that instead of going home for Columbus Day weekend, I should go down to Virginia and stay with him. That way, I won’t have to spend the weekend surrounded by all the reminders of heartbreak waiting for me in Rhode Island. I am not nearly as excited as I was for my Officer and a Gentleman moment, but it gives me something to look forward to. I count down the days as I struggle my way through academics and military life.

My mom is terrified of flying, so despite wanting to be a pilot my entire life, I have never been on an airplane. I am more excited for the flight to Virginia than any other part of the trip. I have no idea how check-in works or what I am supposed to do at security, but my friend kindly escorts me through the process and shows me the ropes. Before long, I climb into the window seat and anxiously wait for takeoff.

I am grinning from ear to ear as we line up on the runway. I hear the roar of the engines, feel myself pressed into my seat, and sit amazed at the power of the aircraft. From the moment we are airborne until we land in Virginia, my face is plastered against the window as I watch the world go by from the heavens for the very first time. I love every second of my first experience “slipping the surly bonds of Earth.”

The next day, we are set to go to a party celebrating my friend’s first time returning home from the Academy. I am excited to meet everyone and have a good time. All of his friends are extremely friendly and immediately make me feel welcome. Like any college party, everyone is drinking, playing drinking games, and, as the night goes on, getting more rambunctious. People offer me drinks, and I decline…at first.

At some point during the night, I realize I don’t know these people. I miss my friends. I miss my family. I miss my girlfriend. I am flooded with emotions that I don’t want to have. Everyone else seems to be having a great time and enjoying the night, so I decide, for the first time ever, to have a beer. It tastes awful, but I choke it down anyway. I don’t feel anything. I’m not sure how it is supposed to feel, but I expected to notice something, so I have another one. After that second drink, I start to feel something, and my friend notices me with a beer. He is excited and tells everyone it is my first time drinking. Everyone is very excited about this and they start giving me more beers and celebrating my first experience. Within a few minutes, I am drunk, and I am having the most incredible time revelling in the debauchery.  I am immediately best friends with everyone at the party. I am dancing, playing drinking games, smoking cigars, and laughing so hard it hurts.

I forget everything.

I forget home.

I forget my girlfriend.

I forget about quitting.

I forget about all my pain and struggles, and for a moment, I am free.

It is the best night I have had in a long time, but I have had way too much to drink, everything is spinning, and it is time to pass out.

I am very concerned because I was promised more girls were eventually going to come to the party, so I brief everyone that I will be passing out, but I want to be woken up if the girls do eventually show up. I don’t trust anyone to remember, especially with how much we have all been drinking, so I find a pen and paper and craft a sign that reads:

“Wake me if girls show up.”

I affix it to my shirt with a binder clip and pass out.

The next day, I wake up feeling like hot garbage, but all my new best friends and I recount the fun we had the night before, and it makes it all worth it. I like the person I become when I drink. I am not the self-conscious boy worried about his skin. I am not the boy who never feels good enough. I am not the boy who quit after one hard week at the Academy. I am not the boy who got dumped. I escape all of that and become the life of the party.

That weekend, I taste flight and alcohol for the first time.

Both take me somewhere new, but only one will take me in the direction I want to go.