Releasing my words
I wrote this a couple years ago… about when my sister had passed away. It was an account of all that I had experienced during the time of her sickness and after her death.
I’m not exactly the same person that wrote this but I still have this darkness clinging on to the insides of my mind and soul…not too deeply burried under the love of my family and friends.
I don’t know how smart it is to share it but I must have written it for a reason…right?
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The Demons I have - Amy Avetikian
I smoked herb to relieve tension, leave behind depression and sadness and be content with my bursts of laughter and numbing state of mind…. nothing else was fulfilling. Not even conversation and laughs with friends…it just wasn’t the same. I don’t think it ever will be… but that’s a curse I have to live with for the rest of my life.
I despise indifference, it’s weakness, but in the beginning I was ‘walking-talking-indifference.’ And it still lingers inside me… like I said, I’m gonna have to live with it and more than that other people have to accept it. Acceptance plays the key role in my torturous self-inflicted melodrama.
I was introduced to it and didn’t understand it at first. I even mocked those who turned to it for comfort. I just didn’t get the “high.” I was doing it wrong. Inhaling it like an amateur, afraid of what might follow. But when I did finally and fearlessly “take a hit”….obviously I couldn’t resist him. I became enveloped in his skunky embrace. Yes I said skunky. Smell it, you’ll know.
There was alcohol too but that was the inevitable substance. It is a “majority substance” and accepted everywhere around the world, especially in the U.S. —-Taxable, legal at 21(like that makes a difference), popular, intoxicating, and most times affordable….perfect.
I had cohorts…a good few who also understood the high and made the high much easier to get to….blissful non-judgmental cannabis company. It was this way because they wanted to achieve the same state I wanted….so we were equals in that way.
Nobody really knew except my cohorts. It was my secret. And at the same time I could give a rat’s ass if someone(excluding family) did find out…It wasn’t special to me or “cool”…it was just something of occasion…
I refuse the term “pot head” I think it’s a degrading term. I actually want to be successful in the very near future and move out from under my mothers roof. Find true love, get married, have children and then maybe later after I’ve accomplished enough, you’ll find me in my basement blessedly glued to a bong….but for now…it’s just not what I aspire to. But the occasional…very uncurrent and sometimes by chance puff…is something that I…don’t mind.
But if I meet a pot head and I have…judgement is thrown out the window. Pot heads are often inspiring people. I say this with a smile on my face…and nope I’m not high.
People always seem to think I am.
“Are you high?”
“No!”
I concluded this one observation though: Everybody and their mother smokes pot. Not my mother but other mothers…and uncles, and cousins, and neighbors, and co-workers and and the health-nut at the gym, and authority figures. Look behind you, to the side of you, in front of you, next door, down the street, down the hallway, in the kitchen…maybe even in the mirror…yup, they smoke pot.
or at least…they have
This one reoccurring-nagging fact kept hovering over me. You’re not happy. Drinking and smoking anything does not make you indefinitely happy. I mean the kind of happy where you wake up and say, “I love my life!” No sarcasm attached, no second guessing, no over-analyzing. Just pure unadulterated happiness.
haha, ya, no. That has never been the case for me, even when everybody in my life was alive and well.
Ok I take that back, I used to feel that way when I was 3…4…5… after 10, I started going down. I was down even though I was a child and “happy all the time.” 10 can get really crappy and I was always too mature for my age… I’m not even sure about 3, 4 and 5… I was kidding myself… but it wasn’t pot or poetry that created the illusions—-back then it was the Nintendo and Chuck E. Cheese.
I’m in my twenties and I’m now telling myself…act your age! It can’t be done. And I kind of like it that way… I try not to take life so seriously, I try, and I think that effort at a superfluous state of mind is why I was and am so blasé and open to trying things….
As a result I became a big fan of adulteration…so it seems
I tried cigarettes and attempted to inhale household products when I was 13…Started drinking coffee when I was 15…coffee doesn’t seem like a big deal but the addictive nature of caffeine is a noted quality.
Can’t a girl experiment? Freedom is a very euphoric feeling. More than any drug.
I cross lines for myself because I’m afraid that I will try anything. The good news is, I want my brain. I need my brain. I like being smart and having knowledge that I use and even random knowledge that is only applicable to pointless game shows….but I like it and a self-indulgent drug trip along a hallucinogenic-induced destructive path will only whittle my brain to vegetable status.
This is the reason that crosses that line for me.
Make no mistake. I’m young and impressionable and look for fun in all the wrong places all the time. We all do. And that’s life. If you’re fond of the drink now, you’ll always be fond of it BUT if you succumb to alcoholism seek help and “sober- up” then the drink is now your enemy. This is why lines have to be crossed….Why would I ever want to be-enemy my pet substances. Never. That’s why moderation is so important…and voila another reason that crosses the line.
So I’ve crossed my lines, my T’s and dotted my I’s, remaining good-natured and “pure”; I’ve wised up about certain things in my life. I’ve coped and continue to cope with the demons inside me that have pushed me down in the dirt. I taste that gritty dirt between my teeth every so often but sometimes just listening to some music or kind words can dispel them…for a while.
The images—-real and imaginary—-that remain in my head will never dispel. They will continue to haunt me and for this reason happiness will never be obtained. I don’t know yet from what they will be relieved or quieted but I wait patiently for that life-altering moment.
In the mean while I keep thinking…I should get high tonight. Is it easily obtained? Of course not it’s just like happiness…there are goods to commandeer… if you don’t have the means, you’re shit out of luck and more than often I’m shit out of luck.
One night after coming home from work I came across an article print out that was left on my desk in my bedroom. In big bold letters it read “Marijuana.” I looked around and I saw my nieces running around in the living room. The article outlines all the negative effects of using and abusing marijuana especially the birth defects it will of on future pregnancies. It described how babies of are still born, or are born with conjoined bones, especially in the fingers, and learning disabilities among other mental dysfunctions. It was the first time that I gave a second thought to the handful of times I had taken a hit. I thought to myself, “You asshole, you want to have kids some day, are you that selfish?”
No I’m not. Consequently, it directly effects another life and not just any life, a precious life. One that I will nurture within me and come to treasure and protect…one that I’m already neglecting and murdering. In fact I haven’t been “selfish” for over two months. Again, I’m not addicted. Just like I’m not addicted to coffee.
Contradiction to everything I’ve poured out in the ladder?…I know…but I can’t lie about that nor my miraculous immunity to the effects of substances and addiction. This isn’t the “I’m young and indestructible” preach. It is just something I’ve noticed about my mind and body. I’m not suggesting that it doesn’t have anything to do with my youth and I’m sure as I get older the effects and addictions will become more prominent in the ol’ brain receptors… but for now…it doesn’t phase me. When I drink coffee I don’t “stay up” and become energetic…I’ve drank several energy drinks and I’ve slept like a baby right after consumption. This has to mean something. And the “high” to be honest with you still doesn’t get me “to the sky” even when I puff like a pro. I’ve gotten more light-headed off the puff of hookah tobacco.
Am I immune? No, I’m human. I’ve gotten drunk, shit-faced. High, not like a kite but like a gliding penguin (in that respect I still consider myself nothing in the big black hole that is “stonedom”). I’ve sweated and cried. Bled and been lonely and sad to the deathly stench-ed hollows of depression.
I’ve had a lack of companionship and romance. And I blame it on my demons.
I’m cursed. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again. But I don’t put all the blame on mame… Mankind has changed. A woman is not a woman but she has evolved into tits and ass gliding down a pole or legs wide open moaning on the bed…and they get younger and younger…oh and it seems all the good-men are taken. They sit with a lovers spell that they have already encountered before I ever got the chance…because I was too busy fighting in battle. Battles.
I’m not bitter or cynical. Well, maybe sometimes… but I’m just learning to take of the armor of war and accept myself for who I am and accept them for who they are. It’s difficult to accept people….
I know what can make this all better but I’m trying my best not to be selfish at the moment. I strongly believe that a selfish act anyone can do is to commit suicide. The parallel introduces itself when self-deprecation comes in the form of over-indulgence in and with anything which is in it’s more honest form…suicide, even if it’s just your soul. But like I said abusing makes enemies of beloved potions.
And I don’t have any enemies. I’m quite friendly and loved.
That should make everything better for myself. But I’m not near satiated.
And faith and patience have become my two favorite virtues.
I’ll grab a band-aid and cover my wounds.
L.A.F.S
We write. We love. We observe. We grin. We groan. We preserve. We take the pain away. We drink. We laugh. We play. We act. We speak but never say that all the things we need are needed in such a way. Our pride and hearts desire. Never have been able to conspire. Thick as thieves but money is funny and men to woman are like bees to honey. My heart keeps pounding away.
-Amy
Is it just me or does anyone else have that feeling of them screaming in a crowded room and absolutely no one noticing or caring to notice?… ya… it’s kinda like that sometimes.
I read this in Oprah’s magazine…. I’m not one of those gung-ho Oprah Winfrey worshipers but I came across her magazine at my sisters apartment and I read this article found neatly tucked away amongst the pages of self-empowerment and blah blah blah…this really entertained me. Her writing and the subject tickled my fancy and me pink, so to speak. Enjoy.
Give me your feedback…What did you think?
