Subourbon Mom

There are a lot of body organs that can be equated to types of people. My heart is the parent of teenagers – steadily working to keep things moving forward and occasionally feeling like it can’t keep up, and skipping a beat when exciting things are happening. My brain is definitely the five-year-old of the body family, with the ability to be shockingly accurate and annoyingly obtuse at the same.

But the most interesting body organ is my liver – she’s a slut – or at least she used to be. She would take in anything, but like a lot of older sluts, doing so now comes with a lot of consequences.

I think the history of alcoholic drinks my liver has filtered also reflects the relationships (and I use the word “relationships” loosely) I’ve had.

In the beginning, there were the sweet early-years boyfriends, who felt good at the time, compared to, well, nothing much else yet… but who left me in the end with monster headaches and an upset stomach. For my liver these years were marked by avid consumption of your staple redneck beers, occasionally spiked with an unusual combination of vodka and whatever else was available.

Of course, everyone has a tequila story. Let’s just say I still can’t even think about it to this day without gagging…and that was just that one guy…(Daughters 1 & 2, be smarter and better than your mom…please!)

Like many people, my liver and heart were indiscriminate for a while, trying to find a basis for comparison. You have to know the bad before you can appreciate the good, right?

Eventually there was the first reciprocated love – and the introduction to wine. Sweet white wine was delightful and full of promise. Unfortunately, I still hadn’t tried a lot of other drinks or relationships, and needed to branch out to truly understand what my liver, er, heart thought was best. European beers with their fancy labels had always been a draw, but in the end they made me sick at heart and in the toilet.

And then my liver and I discovered rum – a drink traditionally from the islands, with a bite that will cut through too much sweet and not leave me with the dreaded wine headache/hangover. That lasted for years and years, and is still a favorite.

But as I’ve gotten older, my liver is thankfully starting to show her age, getting more and more picky about what spills inside, creating all kinds of side effects when I make a bad choice. Beer leaves me feeling tired and fat, wine gives me hot flashes, and vodka just eliminates any mental filters I have – none of these are desirable side effects in my body or in a relationship.

I have now switched from rum to bourbon, and before anyone freaks out and thinks something is wrong between me and Hubby, we are fine. But after 27 years, relationships change. I no longer need the flash fire and overt sweetness of rum drinks. Instead, I prefer the steady burn of bourbon, warming me from the inside. It keeps the hot flashes away, and I rarely have a hangover. Same with Hubby – he’s my Blanton’s, my Basil Hayden, my Jefferson Ocean.

So there you have it, folks. Whether you are in the Boones Farm stage (or, God forbid, never got out of it), trying your first sweet, white wine or still throwing back those nasty shots of tequila, think about what it might be telling. My liver was a slut – but thankfully she held up long enough so that I can now ingest quality.