Get crunk

I can’t remember what exactly it was that upset me that day in Dar es Salaam, but when I was talking about it and the surrounding activities that evening with some of the others, apparently I was incensed. Unless you happen to be an immediate family member, you have probably rarely seen me truly angry. Or at least not expressively so.

I do tend to maintain pretty tight control over my emotions and try to be a pretty level-headed person. I like to think that I can “use my words” to calmly tell you what I think and how I feel – or, er, felt – I admittedly have a hard time acknowledging my feelings as they happen. I guess I am spending too much time trying to suppress the appearance of them. But I’ve made great strides in being able to identify them and express them after the fact – this is some sort of progress at least.

But that day in Dar, after almost 3 weeks of “togetherness,” something in me snapped. I mean, by snapped, I’m pretty sure that I only minimally raised my voice and may have used a few swear words in relation to the event that had irritated me. But even this surprised my travel-mates. When another person entered the room, someone told them, “You missed it. Amber just got crunk.” And then my face probably turned a few shades redder.

I don’t think I really “got crunk.” I’m 97% uncertain what getting crunk actually means, in this context. After reading the top 40 definitions for “crunk” on Urban Dictionary (some of which are pretty offensive to many a population), I am even more confused. But I think her point was that I had just let it out, like for real. I should probably do that more often, really. Sounds healthy, huh?

Urban Dictionary #12: “It just means to get all the way wild, shake your dreads: to be so unreasonably proud of where your from that you act like a maniac, you're just so excited and you don't know why. Like when you're in your car listening to Sammy Sam the hitman or Raheem the Dream. Or when you're at the club and you just go a lil loose and you're not even thanking about posturing for the opposite sex you just wanna unravel yourself and put the whole thang back together tomorrow.”

Wouldn’t that be nice? Let’s get crunk.