The past glitters

The past glitters, but isn't gold. Nostalgia and memory are a tricky beast. When the two combine it makes you long for the joys of a time that may or may not have been what you remember. If you are like me, after awhile your brain drops the not-so-fun parts out of the chapter and leaves you with the shiny glimmers of days gone by.

Personally, I've been having a hard time leaving behind the world of glamour, glitz, cocktails, and dollar bills. I'm trying to let the past stay right there, in the past. For SEVEN whole years I was entertainment for thousands of people (mainly men) on stages. To be honest, I loved my job. I loved the glamour and makeup and picking up new outfits, testing them on different nights to see what worked best with what crowd. I loved the physically demanding aspect of being on stage all night and dancing to songs that made me feel sexy, throwing pole tricks all night long until the stage was covered in dollar bills. I loved talking to new people every night and learning about the lives of others. But of course, there were downsides too. Although I started my first few years dancing at sober clubs, once I went to AZ and joined the party clubs my earnings went up significantly. So with more money came more drinking, my best personality and money making persona usually turning on after 3 cocktails or a few shots. After awhile I was always drinking, A LOT. I used to tell people that I drank for a living, which wasn't wrong. With the drinking came the mornings of headaches, queasy stomachs, puking, and lot of take-out food. I would eat, sleep, sleep some more, then get up and get ready to start the night all over again. I was grateful to be a 'vomit once then im okay' kind of girl, but that didn't fix all the days and nights of subpar sleep created by the hangover. The peekaboo hangovers were the worst, you know, like when you feel fine all day then by 5pm it hits you like a bus? Those would rock my shit. No coming back from those. I definitely had a few nights at work where I had way too much and the women who helped me through it were angels, Thank You for that.

Giving hundreds of men lap dances usually wasn't the best either, especially when touchy people didn't get the message. $20 means keep your grubby hands over there. Thank you. VIP's weren't always so bad because atleast there were interesting people back there usually. I don't know, theres some pretty bad lap dance customers out there so once you've had the weird ones, normies aren't so bad. Still, the OCD in me hates the idea of sitting on a strangers lap (especially when they're wearing sweatpants, ugh).

It's also really hard adjusting to regular life when you've seen the seedy underbelly of the world. Now I'm not saying everyone is seedy but I've met some individuals who were definitely on the hunt to break their marriage vows, trying to hurt the feelings of every beautiful girl in the club (bc he were probably a loser in highschool), or just plain old being GROSS. So it's hard to look at normal life without that weird lens of suspicion.

I think the issue I'm having lately is getting used to normal levels of dopamine. I'm so used to the MUSIC - LIGHTS - ACTION ! of it all, living a regular life can be kind of hard. You have to retrain your brain every day to get excited about the mundane things. I've always been in love with the simple things in life - the sunlight through a window, the moon, the way the stars glow when you are away from the city, birds chirping in the morning. But mundane? That part I am not used to yet. I know it takes time to adjust to regular life outside of the world of Sex Work, and now I'm 2 years out soooooooo, when will I finally be adjusted? Love, Brooklynn V