The World Is Yours If You Want It

 I can’t stop listening to “Paint” by the Paper Kites. The song fills my head with a multitude of conflicting memories. In the intro, I am a clinically depressed teenager, sneaking out of the house alone at night just to walk the streets of downtown Denver smoking cigarettes, taking hits of weed, and chatting with men I meet outside of bars. I am so outside of myself I don’t realize this is strange behavior. I don’t wanna see any friends. I don’t like sharing my drugs. In the chorus I’m at parties in college that I don’t want to be at. Parties I go to because it’s what everyone else is doing and I want to make friends, but not so badly that I feel it’s imperative to make a good impression. I am too high on percocet and weed to form even the most basic of sentences. Opening my mouth is uncomfortable because everyone I’m talking to is drunk. They are not on my wavelength. I dash out into the night alone so I can get higher. In the peak of the song I am living in New York City. I’m so alive and so lonely. I put on a latex skirt and leather bra and pink choker that’s actually a dog collar. I go to my first techno club. Basement. I learn about sex. I learn about what it means to be fucking broke. I buy a bunch of adderall and snort it all. I lie to my psychiatrist when I run out and start getting high on Ritalin. I drink. I buy coke off the street that’s laced with something bad. I think I’m dying. I think this is the most alive I’ve ever fucking felt. I get sober. I leave. As the chorus starts up again I’m 24 going to music festivals. I’m in Vegas at 2am after seeing Megan Thee Stallion’s set and I’m being asked if I wanna get married. We pass the same chapel Britney Spears got married at and I ask him to turn up the music and show me how fast his car can go. We sing along to Flatbush Zombies and laugh. I’m in Aspen for X Games. I see Illenium with a friend. We meet some guys in line for the bus back into town and one of them has coke all over his face. I wipe it off and rub it on my gums. We party. We do bumps. We get wasted. We leave the bar and it’s snowing so bright and so quiet. The world freezes for a moment. We dance in the streets. We go back to the boys’ place and I fuck one of them on an air mattress while the others sleep. My friend gets sexually assaulted the same night in the same room after the sun rose. I’m passed out so I don’t know. We don’t speak much after that. The song carries on and I’m in rehab in Massachusetts. I have my own room. I’m going to groups, learn about DBT skills and relapse prevention. I smoke cigarettes in the gazebo. I talk about being a sexually active woman in recovery. I talk about being raped by my ex boyfriend. I meet a boy. We watch Midsommar the night before he leaves. I want to make out with him. This is the first time in a very long time that I actually want to kiss a boy. I like him so much. We date for a bit. He leaves. I relapse. The song comes to an end and I’m in a club in Berlin snorting MDMA, taking ecstasy pills, doing shots of tequila, using condoms, snorting drugs that don’t even have a name just a series of numbers and letters. I’m smoking cigarettes inside, using someone else’s mouth as an ashtray. I’m doing ketamine mixed with coke. I feel seasick. I throw up. I fuck some more. I don’t remember anyone’s name. Only the way they made me feel. 

“Paint” was my entire 20’s. I was lonely. I was heartbroken. I was broken. I was scared. I was depressed. I was bipolar. I was sick. I was ready to die. I was high. I was soaring. I was sober. I was on the pink cloud. I was aching. I was longing. I was alone. I was making friends. I was manic. I was at peace.

I’m on a new wave now. I can look at all those times without a tinge of regret. I’m still lonely as I’ve always been. Sometimes sad. But regret is not something I hang onto. I’m grateful for that. God bless Paper Kites for letting me reach this new high that makes the things down below not look so bad, but they’re places I don’t need to go back to because I got everything I needed from them. 

Listen to new music. Never stop trying to find new feelings or states of mind. Read a lot of books. Be alone. Make friends. Fall in love with boys. Make time for writing. Take care of your skin. Delete his number. Have no phone time. Buy some plants. Move around. Make food at home. Tell people who deserve it that you love them. Tell people who don’t that you hate them. Move on. Move up. And maybe even get Botox. The bag is yours if you want it. <3