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Chapter 1
The Butterfly Effect
I have come to learnâfor better and, sometimes, for worseâthat we will never see the thing coming that can change our lives forever. There are watershed moments like giving birth and losing a loved one, breaking up and falling in love, of course, but when it comes to the small moments that lead to a new path, most of the time, theyâll surprise you. A missed train, a deal that falls through, a chance encounter, or a split-second decision can impact your whole life. This is the essence of the butterfly effect, one of my favorite parts of chaos theory. The butterfly effect is simply the idea that in nature, tiny changes can lead to completely unexpected and unpredictable resultsâjust like key moments in our own lives can lead us on paths we never imagined. Seemingly small actions and decisions can create widespread effects.
We can never predict the decisions, innovations, and influences that will change the course of our lives. For me, getting kicked out of school at fourteen years old set me on a different path than I ever imagined for myself. It was my Sliding Doors moment as the trajectory of my life changed tracks in an instant. This isnât about what-ifs and living in the past; itâs about realizing that, like the flap of a butterflyâs wings in one part of the world altering weather patterns in another, seemingly innocuous decisions can impact our lives, and the world around us, in ways we may not see coming. This butterfly moment happened for me in 1996, in the headmistressâs office at Convent of the Sacred Heart on the Upper East Side of Manhattan, and Iâm still reeling from its effects twenty-five years later.
Tasting the Good Life
I was born and raised in New York Cityâs Chelsea neighborhood, and I was a true New Yorker from the start. I loved the frenetic energy of the city, the endless opportunities and action, and the amalgamation of people. I observed it all from my apartment building on Twenty-Fourth Street and Eighth Avenue and the hallowed halls of my private school, Sacred Heart, where I was enrolled from third to eighth grade. Itâs one of the top schools in Manhattan, an all-girls breeding ground for socialitesâincluding my classmates Nikki Hilton and, perhaps less expectedly, Lady Gaga.
I existed as a shape-shifter, fitting in among New Yorkâs elite at school and with my neighborhood friends downtown. In my head, the chasm between my classmates and me was vast. I was constantly aware of their money and social status, of their Connecticut country houses and ski chalets, of their closets full of designer clothes and bags. My friends invited me to their lavish vacations, second homes in the Hamptons, after-school shopping trips at Henri Bendelâs, and five-star dinners. It was a very different world than what I was used to. My parents were educated and hardworking, but never had that kind of money. At some of the most exclusive restaurants in the city, sitting alongside my friendâs families, it was trial by fire, and sometimes that meant spilling a glass of orange juice all over a friendâs parents, who were the duke and duchess of someplace far away and fancy.
While these divergent experiences have enabled me to walk among many circles as an adultâfrom basement raves to venture capital boardrooms to Upper East Side hauntsâIâve felt chronically different, like Iâve always been adapting in some way. As I got older, and especially as I became sober, it seemed like every alcoholic I met had experience with this feeling of âotherness.â Thereâs something about seeing or reacting to the world a little differently from other people that addicts have in common.
To be fair, my classmates at Sacred Heart were perfectly nice; they never said anything to me about me not having what they had. Looking back, I wonder how much of my discomfort was just in my head. I realize now that most middle-school girls feel out of place, after all, unsure in their own skin. Itâs one of the great joys of adolescence. So maybe it wasnât that I was so different. Maybe we all felt misunderstood on some level.
Even if I didnât know which knife and fork to use with each course, fashion was always my way in. I would get my mom to buy me Vogue along with Seventeen at the local DâAgostinoâs when I was twelve, and Iâd spend hours devouring the avant-garde looks. While there was a lot I couldnât relate to in Vogue, it was my first education on the power and excitement of the fashion industry. By ninth grade, I was wallpapering my bedroom with Versace ads (the Versace ads of the mid-â90s stood out among the crowd in an amazing era of fashion advertising). I was also obsessed with the supermodels of the day, including, of course, the icon Kate Moss.
When you become aware of what you donât have, of the ways in which others are seemingly better off, it can either motivate you or drag you down into feeling less than. I saw the power moms in head-to-toe Chanel, rolling conference calls and making deals while picking up their kids. I saw the lifestyles of my friendsâthe access to both material wealth and experiential wealth, as well as the endless opportunities. I got a taste of a more glamorous world, and I wanted it one day. Even though the road was paved with junkies, rehabs, and rock bottoms, I eventually clawed my way into itâwell, a chic, downtown version of it anyway.
It also gave me a little chip on my shoulder. As a teen, I felt as if I had to rebel against that designer-label, cookie-cutter display of wealth. I wanted a Prada bag like every other teenage girl, but there was no way my parents were going to buy me one even if they could have afforded it (and they couldnât). So I had to make my own way. I bought an orange vinyl tote bag and, using a black Sharpie, I wrote âPrada Sucksâ in big bold letters. It was my own experimentation with streetwear before I really know what it was, and it got a lot of attention in school. I think it was a way for me to reject that lifestyle before it rejected me.
I made rejecting it cool, too. One girl lied about where her shoes were from because she was embarrassed to tell me that they were new Miu Miu. I somehow flipped the script from being embarrassed about not having designer goods to making other girls feel embarrassed to show off theirs. I realized in that moment that I possessed the power to manipulate situations in my favor, even if the odds seemed overwhelmingly against me. To gain control even when common sense should dictate otherwise. Itâs something that has served me well over the years, though in middle school I felt a little guilty for it. I mean, not too guilty. Letâs be real: she did have the seasonâs hottest Miu Miu shoes.
The movie Kids came out when I was in eighth grade, and, despite its cautionary tale, it set the tone for our social lives going forward. My friends and I dressed in the same skater street style as our new icon, Chloë Sevigny (or maybe she dressed like us!), as we snuck out of our apartments and walked the streets of New York at night, smoking blunts and drinking beer. Whether it was with my school friends or neighborhood friends, it was all the same. Teenagers across the city were quietly escaping their apartments at night, meeting up with friends, and getting into some shit.
We wore uniforms at school, a darker plaid skirt in the fall and winter and a light blue skirt in the spring, paired with a white blouse or polo shirt. As teen girls do, we found ways to bend the rules and express ourselves. We would roll up our skirts to show a little more leg, tie our white blouses above our navels when the nuns werenât looking. I used Manic Panic to paint bright green streaks in my hair and pierced my belly button. My friends and I would go to Barneys and buy our favorite eyeliners and lip glosses from Make Up For Ever, and they would come downtown with me and shop at my favorite indie stores. Looking back, we were pretty damn sophisticated for a group of thirteen- and fourteen-year-old girls, but of course at the time I felt anything but. In my eighth-grade yearbook youâll find scribbled notes about Gucci bags and trips to Bergdorfâs. Not typical for middle schoolersâunless youâre in Manhattan.
While my life seemed to be moving along on this path of being the adorable rebel at Sacred Heart, the funny dinner guest at my friendâs homes, and the unexpected downtown party girl, I was about to receive a rude awakening.
A Bad Influence
In the fall of eighth grade, my mom received a call from the headmistress saying that she wanted to meet with us both the next dayânever a good sign. I thought about everything I had done recently, racking my brain for transgressions, but nothing overt came to mind. There had been an incident with a Bunsen burner earlier that month . . . but surely that couldnât be it.
I swear I can remember every detail from that day. When I arrived at the headmistressâs office, my mom was already there. We pushed open the door and entered the office together. The headmistress directed us to sit in a pair of matching antique armchairs positioned directly across from her desk. I fidgeted in my seat and looked around at the hundreds of books lining her shelves.
The headmistress cleared her throat and told us matter-of-factly that I was expelled from Sacred Heart. She said I was a bad influence on my classmates and the school could no longer tolerate my behavior. My mom was quiet. She held her gaze straight ahead as she absorbed the information. The headmistress asked me not to come back after Christmas break, and after some negotiation, my mom convinced her to let me finish the school year. The headmistress must have known how tough it is to change schools midyear, and she agreed to let me stay until June.
We left the office in stunned silence. My face burned with indignation. I didnât do anything differently than the other girls were doing! Why was she kicking me out? I wanted to scream, but I knew better than to make things worse. My mom looked at me with such disappointment, and it killed me. I had long felt like the faculty of my school treated me differently, and now I was proven right. I was certain their lack of patience with me stemmed from the fact that I wasnât the kind of student they liked to see there. We got partial financial aid. We definitely werenât donating any money. We didnât have a famous last name. There were other girls who did have those last names, and whose families did donate, and I think they had license to act out because they were protected by their money and status. They were above reproach, and they were never disciplined.
If I was hoping for sympathy, I never found it. My parents were pissed, and their disappointment in me was crushing. They didnât see the injustice in the situationâall they saw was an ungrateful daughter who blew her shot at graduating from a good school theyâd sacrificed to send her to. They didnât believe that I was being held to a different standard than the other girls. Their lack of faith in me probably hurt more than the fact of being expelled.
For a while, I felt like shit about myself, like I was a piece of trash being thrown away. My thoughts played on a loop, over and over again: Iâm not good enough. Whatâs wrong with me? For the first time in my life, I felt the full brunt of being rejected for who I am. To this day I can still see the headmistressâs look of total disgust as she stared me down from the other side of her desk. Iâve played that scene over and over in my head more times than I can tell you.
I was also angry. So angry. It would take me a while to realize that my best revenge was to become someone who mattered so that no one could treat me like garbage again. They say moments like these are âcharacter building,â and truly, I think my expulsion from school shaped me in a fundamental way. Anyone who knows me today knows Iâm quick to stand up for myselfâfloating like a butterflyâbut willing to sting like a bitch. I never again want to feel like that young girl felt.
My final semester of school was tense. I was licking my wounds and wondering where I fit it. The teachers all knew Iâd been expelled, and they seemed to treat me even more harshly. Why would they invest any more time and effort in my learning when Iâd be gone in a few months? It did so much damage to my self-esteem.
As I got down on myself for screwing up my opportunity at Sacred Heart, for disappointing my parents, and for being the kind of kid who could be so easily discarded, I also became more critical of my appearance. As a preteen and teen, I always felt ugly. I could easily write a laundry list of complaints about my physical appearance: I had acne, muscular legs, a gap in my teeth, and so on. It seemed easier to focus on my physical woes instead of the whirlwind of emotions and doubts in my head. Now I look back at pictures from eighth grade and I see a cute, awkward girl who was struggling to fit in. Itâs always that way, isnât it? In the moment, you have a million complaints about the way you look; years later, you canât believe you wasted so much energy being so mean to yourself. Of course, thatâs something Iâm working on. Iâm still my harshest critic. The difference is that now I have a much healthier, more realistic self-image, even if itâs not perfect. Iâve come to learn that self-criticism and lack of confidence are rarely only about your physical appearance, and being self-conscious is human. But that perspective is hard won, and not easily accessed when youâre a teenage girl. (Well, unless youâre Ivanka Trump, whom I remember seeing at a friendâs thirteenth birthday party. She looked every bit the part: rich and pretty, confident and comfortable in her skin, like she had access to everything she might want. Say what you want about her now, but at age thirteen, the girl was stunning. Also, for the record, she offered me a ride home from the party in her limo, but when I told her where I lived, she said, âNever mind.â)
A Change Will Do Us Good
The ramifications of my expulsion were finally realized in earnest when the school year ended and my parents told me we were leaving the city. They sat me, my brother, and my sister in the living room and told us they had bought a house in Newtown, Connecticut, an hour and a half outside the city. I was shocked. The news came as a physical blow, as if Iâd been sucker punched. I didnât know much, but I knew I belonged in New York City.
My siblings and I had very little warning before our lives were uprootedâwe moved just a couple months later. Our parents didnât show us the new house or town before we left. They simply told us it was happening and gave us some boxes to pack our shit. I asked over and over why we were moving, and my parents said it was because I got thrown out of Sacred Heart and they had nowhere else to send me, which was total bullshit. I could have gone to the local public school in Chelsea. But my mom had a job opportunity in a neighboring Connecticut town, and my parents wanted to get out of the city. I get it. New York City is incredibly expensive, and private school for three kids was an impossibility. In hindsight, I know they were making what felt like the best choice not only for me but for my brother and sisterâfor all of us as a family. But wasnât there something in between the Big Apple and Nowheresville, Connecticut?
I seemed like my life was over, and there was absolutely nothing I could do about it. I felt helpless and alone, unable to confide in anyone. My parents and I became completely disconnected, and I stopped caring if I disappointed them or not. So instead of being honest and vulnerable, I started acting out more. Thatâs when things began to take a turn for me. I think a healthy fear of disappointing your parents helps you stay out of trouble as a kid. Not me. I became so resentful that I ended up doing the oppositeâI was seeking out ways to disappoint them, to show them what bad behavior really looked like.
Newtown, Connecticut, was rural. Really rural. Our house was an old converted barn, which I now think is beautiful. But at the time, I was shocked by the stark difference to our small but modern tenth-floor apartment with views of the Empire State Building. I missed the faint sound of traffic lulling me to sleep at night. I missed the independence of walking out my front door and having the whole city at my fingertips. I had lived in one of the liveliest neighborhoods in the city, maybe even the world, with an abundance of restaurants and bars, incredible shopping, and sidewalks bustling with people from all walks of life. In Connecticut, all I had was a general store, a $2 movie theater, and a big flagpole in the center of the road. It was a suburban nightmare.
I had such independence in New York. I could walk or take the subway everywhere I wanted to go, and that meant that I never had to rely on anyone, especially my parents. But in the suburbs, of course, it wasnât that easy. I didnât yet have a driverâs license, so I made friends with older kids with cars, or Iâd beg my parents to drive me to the mall. Getting anywhere felt like a chore.
Iâm sure for some peo...
