I’m in the financial aid office at Georgetown waiting for someone to come up front and answer a question. Another kid comes in and I find out he also grew up in Sarasota; we even went to the same school at one point. I didn’t make any “friends” while I was in law school, but now I’ve got someone to exchange nods with when we pass each other on campus. His name is Joseph.
Flash forward five months. My part-time job is still “assistant to the Law Center’s Director of Wellness Promotion” – and I’m running the school’s Healthy Recipe Exchange. As I manage this wholesome event, I’m more than a little strung out on heroin. Really – I’m not managing shit. I’m nodding out and sweating at a table while people swirl around me and ask questions that I answer with a shrug and a funny face.
Here comes Joseph. He tells me I don’t look well, asks exactly what the hell I’m doing – and finds it thoroughly amusing. Then he asks me how I’m doing. For some reason, he becomes one of the only people whom I tell that I’ve recently been arrested for possession of heroin. And then he tells me about some serious drug charges he had faced at one point for dealing meth. Of course we exchange phone numbers. Clearly, this is a good person for me to know!
It’s been a month since I talked to Joseph at the Healthy Recipe Exchange when I get a text message from him. “Do you have a stove?”
“Hmmmm,” I think to myself. “What are the implications of this text message? He knows I live in an apartment building, so he can’t possibly think he can get away with cooking meth here. What then might he be up to…?”
I write him back, “Yes. I do. And I don’t want to know why you’re asking. Just let me know when you want to come over.”
Because this sounds like an adventure!Right???
As it turns out, Joseph has learned a new trade. GHB! Which – as he tells me – doesn’t stink up a place the way meth does. Well – what’re we waiting for?!
[insert Act II here]
There is nothing worse than the pain of opiate withdrawals. Except for the pain of opiate withdrawals, experienced in a cloud of disgusting, noxious, chemical shit.
Someone made the mistake of asking me to transport a bottle of diazepam for a friend. Sounds like trouble in river city!
“Diazepam (My Hands Still Shake).” August 1st, 2013. Acrylics and ink. 10×10″ block of wood.
Those of you that followed my progress / story / artwork may remember that back in – oh, when was it – April (probably) I made a piece that addressed how it had become more difficult to be as thoroughly transparent about my feelings as it had been back when I was still living inside the walls of a treatment facility. I believe that I addressed it specifically in my piece, “Maybe I Don’t Believe in God.”
What very few of you know is that I have been compelled for reasons (somewhat) beyond my control to be even less honest in the last month or so. You see, sometimes the choices that I make have repercussions for people that are not… um… me. And that puts a person in a little bit of a moral/spiritual grey area. On the one hand, I want (maybe even need) to be “rigorously honest” (as they say in “the rooms”). But I live in a world where things can get a little complicated and I’ve allowed myself, recently, to slip into a pattern of lying by omission. I carry many of these lies today. Some of them, some of you are aware of. I have confided in you. Others, remain totally in the dark. Today, however, I am choosing to be fully honest. Here is how I spent my day.
I drank coffee, ate some breakfast, bullshitted around the apartment, ate some diazepam, ran some errands, dyed my hair, ate more diazepam, painted this picture, and then – without any real concern for the paints and painting adjacent to me on the couch, stretched out (lying on top of them), and took a nap for a while. And then I hung my stupid confession on the same wall that I’ve been hanging all my newest “works of art” on. My girlfriend came home (remember: silly as it may seem, since she’s my current girlfriend, I’m not using any real names on this website). From there, we mostly continued where we left off last night. Not talking to or really even acknowledging one another. I love her, she loves me. But things are not going well these last couple of days. Maybe it’s the fact that I’m FUCKING EATING DIAZEPAM. Or maybe that’s a symptom of the larger problem. Either way, I am not happy. And while I recognize that a lot of people are something less than happy a lot of the time, it’s not really something that I’m particularly great at. When I get unhappy, I sometimes begin to behave in ways that have a pretty good chance of fucking killing me. I’ve learned other ways to deal with that discontent, but my usual methods of feeling better are not working out so well for me lately. It’s not for a lack of trying. I’ve been painting like a motherfucker, I’ve seen a mental health counselor twice in the last four days, and I’ll see another on Saturday and another on Tuesday. Whatever the issue is… fuck if I know.
I am tentatively making plans to bail the fuck out of Jacksonville. I love this girl, but I don’t know if that’s enough. And maybe – just maybe – I’d be doing her a favor by leaving. It’s entirely possible that I am not cut out for sharing a life with another human being. My own mental illness is – sometimes – all that I can manage. Having to help someone else with their own… may be beyond my range of capability. It’s possible that I make a better friend than I make a boyfriend. Shit – just ask my last serious girlfriend – we’re doing great as friends! (Isn’t that right, [girl whose name I won’t use]?) It was probably selfish and fucked up of me to ever get involved in the first place. After all, she probably didn’t fully understand exactly what she would be getting herself into. And I certainly did my best, at the time, to convince her that all was well. I was healed, after all!
So, here’s the general game plan… I have way too much stuff and whether I leave or not, I feel like it’s time to slim the fuck down. All of my records, books, etc, are now for sale. And of course ALL OF MY ART IS FOR SALE. (PLEASE BUY SOME OF IT). Ignore the prices in the store. I will cut you a god damn deal.
One last note, as I wrote on Facebook earlier this evening…
Would it be fair to say that we’ve pretty much established that I have no problems when it comes to disclosing personal details of my life to the Internet at large?
Okay, cool. Glad we’re on the same page.
NOW… if something I’ve written means something to you and you wanna tell me about it… Awesome! I appreciate that kind of shit. It’s inspiring, encouraging, and totally welcome.
Similarly, if you’d like to share something *with me* about your own life that you think might be helpful… Awesome! That kind of feedback is also great and I really appreciate it!
BUT if you reach out to me just to ask for MORE details about what’s going on with me… If you have nothing to offer me and you just want the inside scoop for your own weird selfish (probably ego or gossip related reasons) well… feel free to fuck right off with that shit.
My life is hectic enough without having to play twenty questions with every asshole that wants a piece of me.
Love, Sam
