Stoned
I didn't think I'd still be doing this at this big age. I've been high every day for a while now. It helps me cope. It used to be soccer, then it was booze, then it was booze and porn, then it was sex and booze and porn, then it was porn and booze, now it's weed and porn. Different shit, same act of flight from the self.
Thirty-six. Big age. Blessed to be alive, truthfully. Blessed in a lot of ways. Beautiful newborn son. Beautiful and smart partner that I'm about to marry. And yet. I wake in the morning with the same feeling of. What? Emptiness. Despair. The gnawing feeling like something is off. Discomfort in my own skin, discomfort on this planet. Is it capitalism, or something biological? Is this conditional or intractable. I'm leaving my job, so there's always uncertainty and anxiety with that, but this is familiar. Employed or not, successful or not, alone or with friends, this thing I'm describing is always there. This feeling of lack. This ineluctable feeling, sitting inside me like an avocado pit. Impenetrable. Inscrutable. But always there.
Is it because I'm this writer manqué? Is it because I have a fancy MFA but I've only had a few pieces published? But I've seen folks with far more commercial success than me be gripped by the same vices. Wracked on the same wheel.
Fuck, so often I think I just don't like it here. This vale of tears. I know Christianity is the religion of conquest and empire and colonialism but they're on to something. But so are the Buddhists. So are the Hindus. Same core kernel: the only way to be truly happy and free is to love what is. Amor fati. Surrender. Truly LOVE what is.
When I'm high I feel a bit more at home. A bit more at peace. The feeling subsides it a bit. But I know it's transient. The rest of the time though peace is elusive. I know getting high every day isn't the best thing in the world for you but the fuck else am I supposed to do? Just suffer? Just sit there in needless anxious every night of my existence? Getting high every day isn't great but being in the red zone all of the time from chronic anxiety, having your synapses fried from constant fucking cortisol coursing through your veins isn't either. For fucks sake.
So I'll keep reading. But is that folly as well? The notion that the salve for this will come from something external, from something outside myself. From a job or a book or fuck or a drug. But what's the alternative? I know they talk about acceptance but I can't accept feeling like ass all of the time. Nobody should deserve to feel like I feel. So the alternative is keep moving. I'm tired of being stuck. I know that much. I'm tired of making myself small. But somewhere between recklessness and despair there's a way to navigate this life or what's left of it. I just hope I can find some semblance of peace before I shuffle off this mortal coil.
I've though asceticism was the answer. I've thought hedonism was the answer. I refuse to believe that death is the answer. But I need answers. Or at least AN answer.
I think love is the answer.