Big Fun Never Ending Nightmare

 

I was dating this guy for a while who liked looking at old photos of his friends from before he went to rehab, which is where we met. They were always doing something stupid like dicking around on guitars in between doing whippets, snorting ket, popping pills, eating acid. Always with the “ing” which means something is progressing. The voice is active. It’s going down, it’s happening. People getting fucked, parties being thrown, music getting played, drugs being taken. I didn’t know so much shit could go down in bumfuck nowhere Vermont. 

His past life, the one before my troubled mind came into the picture with all those suicidal ideations and depressive episodes and incessant desire to be in a state of drug induced psychosis, seemed to be quite exciting for my boyfriend. His favorite topic of conversation involved doing drugs at a Disco Biscuits show, doing drugs on the couch, being drunk at work, doing more drugs in a parking lot after the show, being drunk and doing drugs while playing bass on stage in a disgusting bar I would never dare to enter. I have a type, but I also have standards. 

I was far more eager than he was to leave that lifestyle behind. He was all sex, drugs, rock and roll. Stimulating. I was all sex and depression, having to experience the unpleasant ordeal of trying to fit a flaccid coke dick inside me up until a couple days before I went to the psych ward. Much more sad than exhilarating. 

When I found myself in the luxury rehab center outside of Boston where I first met him I was fully committed to getting sober. I’m the type of drug user where it has to almost kill me before I’m ready for the party to stop, and my lifestyle did indeed almost kill me. I knew it was time to wrap it up and get healthy, go to bed at a reasonable hour, get on the right meds, feel the crushing existential dread that plagues most Americans at certain hours of the day. 

You know the drill, and if you don’t then now you do. Rehab, sober house, a new apartment in a place you know nothing about other than it’s a better place than anywhere else to get healthy. Sober kids get it. This ex of mine moved in, and it did not occur to me until after he moved out that the reason he moved in is so he could get high without experiencing any consequences, knowing damn well I don’t really have a leg to stand on when it comes to telling someone else not to get high. That’s how I ended up learning all about his past life through photos. That’s how I ended up learning he cares more about the people he used to know, the person he used to be, than the person he could have been with me. 

When I was with him I figured he liked romanticizing the past because he didn’t have a damn clue what to do with his future. If I had to guess I’d say the most exciting part about doing drugs for him is that you’re doing them instead of waiting for something else to happen. He didn’t mind waiting for the drugs to kick in because that’s when all the dicking around could occur. I do like living life with whimsy, so I’m familiar with the joy that comes with a little nonsense between friends. But the only lines I’ve ever liked are the white ones, which is to say I don’t much care for waiting. The only thing I’ve ever really waited for are for are the men I fuck to fall in love with me. A waste of time, if you ask me. I’m just throwing shit at the wall now and seeing what sticks, but I’m guessing he didn’t want to admit to himself that he was indeed waiting, so he ended up doing. And all that doing ended in rehab. It ended before he wanted it to, so now he’s just waiting again. With nothing to distract him from waiting. So he wants to keep doing drugs. Because then he doesn’t have to keep waiting. An addict's mind is a tricky beast. I hope someday he’s done with all that doing and all that waiting and touches grass or something. Smell a flower, look at the clouds because god knows we have plenty of them here in Boston, listen to ambient noise music, I don’t know. 

I get the need to do something so it doesn’t feel like you’re waiting, I do. That’s just not why I liked doing drugs. All those dumb photos was his way of saying, I want my old life back. I’m uncomfortable with waiting for something to go down (and we live in a city where not a damn thing goes down.) I miss the action, the excitement. I miss doing things. He is indeed a lost soul. He’s 25, which is young. Your 20’s are a big fun never ending nightmare. But the older I get the more I realize the big fun doesn’t have to end, and the nightmare will only end if you stop waiting for something to go down and make something happen instead. And if the thing you make happen is scoring drugs then you’re just avoiding the point, which is worse than missing the point entirely. 

Move to Paris, get in trouble, be spontaneous. That’s what Carrie’s Russian “lova” said to her when they were snuggled up inside during a particularly brutal cold snap. I like that. That’s what I’m about to do in the fall. I’m putting all my shit in storage and I’m off to travel the world. I’ll get in trouble (the good kind of trouble.) I’ll be spontaneous. I’ll forget all about him. There’s no “ing” in any of that yet it calls to make something happen. This month I’m packing, I’m saying goodbye, I’m leaving, I’m boarding a flight, I’m moving towards something uncertain and frightening, but I’m moving all the same. I’m never going to see my ex again because he still thinks Vermont is the coolest place to be. I’ve got bigger things on my mind. I’m doing okay. I’m doing just fine.