work in progress

Hero, villain, bystander, fill in the blank. What will you become

Why fight to live if we only living to die

Along Came Molly

                I dropped out of high school when I was 17, I was a senior at the time. I was just fed up with the routine of it all. Everything was too structured, everything was chosen and specified for me, even my lunch options. By the time I was 18 I had become the epitome of a dropout nobody. I was living the prequel to someone’s’ life story plagued and riddled with addiction. So at one point, I decided to get my GED, and try to make something of myself, then I went to community college. It wasn’t like I had a learn disability or anything, I just didn’t like school. College was easier, I could pick and choose. Things were designed as rigidly.

Success came out of nowhere for me. Money, fame, recognition did also.  When I went to school my major switched a few times but I ended up in English. I just couldn’t decide so I finished three years of school before dropping out. All of this prompted me to write a book, a book that would change my life. Although all that money, all those loans, wasted, I was hoping to create something special. The result was something genius, but only in my own mind, and a few thousand other people’s minds. One of my problem’s is I am arrogant. I revel in my own success. They said it was just the drugs talking. Some said I was a nothing writer, and that I could probably never put together another coherent book after money and fame was thrown at me.  Who would be right? Was I a writer or a fraud? You only get to hear about the stories of failure after someone has had success, is that my inevitable future?

                What I never realized that being a dropout would make my story that much more successful, notice how when people make it big and they dropped out of high school or college the media always makes a big fuss about it. “They beat the system”. Well maybe the system is just broken and is in need of fixing, because many kids fall through the cracks. And those kids aren’t necessarily smart, as the outliers of the world prove. This is an evident part of life. Outliers exists, there is always exceptions to the rules.

                This book I decided to write would be a novel but it was kind of a memoir to, it was based on a lot of life experiences but I took a lot of my own creative liberties just because I like to use my imagination. And usually what is pretend is more interesting that what is real.

                The problem with all this passion being directed towards something productive like a book was where my inspiration was coming from. I was using real life dark experiences from my own trauma filled past combined with my own style of Gonzo journalism in which I indulged in all different types of drugs and alcohol.

                The character I was writing and creating in my mind were consuming my life, I was becoming them. And the problem was my writing was too pessimistic and Kafkaesque to be something you lived day to day. While writing short stories I was becoming manic but when I starting writing a novel I started becoming one with the drug addled protagonist I had created for my book. I starting becoming my own worst enemy and living a walking nightmare, just like the character of my book.

                This is no fantasy you want to be living in. This is a place darker than the real world. They say heath ledger couldn’t get the character of the joker out of his head after the movie was done and finished. He said he lived with the joker day and night, it was part of him. I am beginning to know that feeling. I am writing my own story it seems, the problem is my stories always have dark endings. Is that where I am ended? This is the aspect of creativity that that frightens me, that you can become so consumed with an art form that it takes you over completely and becomes integrated into your life to a point where you can no longer control it controlling you. Some people can’t distinguish fantasy from reality. Think of how books or video games can be immersive, imagine writing a book and beginning to live the story you are in the process of writing.

                The drug Molly, or MDMA, or ecasty in its purest form, it came into my life around the time I met a girl. Let’s call her Molly, just for the sake of the story. In all honesty I think I liked Molly too much, in fact I was falling in love with her.  Do you see what I’m getting at here? Molly changed my life. Molly opened my eyes to a whole new world. But in the long run Molly was not for me, at least the way we were living, we could never last, it was a relationship that was all but healthy. My first time using the drug, I wrote for three straight hours producing around 30 pages. Was it genius or was Molly just talking? I’m not sure, but I know I had a lot to say that night. I turned that book into a little thing called “Along came Molly,” writing this book changed my life. For better or worse, is for you to decide. I am no longer in the position to judge, not anyone, not even my own actions.

                Molly played an influential role in shaping my debut book. Today, that is not something I am proud to say, but back in the day I would happily admit that fact of my career.  So the question arose, could I be creative without the drug? I was not shy to iterate that I used the drug in constructing the book. So was I really a writer or was it just Molly talking? Maybe I am just very easily influenced. My mom has accused me of that many times.

                In the few months I spent with Molly I thoroughly enjoyed myself. It was a blur of excasty I felt like I was living life and loving it, my eyes were open, seemingly for the first time. Either I was in the Garden of Eden or I had just exited it. Either way, my perception was not just my own, it was addled by drugs. But I was feeling reborn. My mind was racing with ideas, book related and completely random. My mind was trying to run with every idea in every direction. My mind was a jumbled mess of thoughts ultimately due to drug use. There wasn’t enough time in the day to write all my thoughts down.  I was an idea machine, my ambition succeeded everything, and the problem was my work ethic to finish what I started. I made grand plans but that didn’t mean I would finish them. I had plans to set the world on fire, but no way to calm the flames.

                One day Molly and I were in a park after dark and we were accompanied by our other friend, Molly. That night wasn’t the best of experiences. The cops raided the park we were in and they accused me of being on coke. The result was being questioned for two hours and having dogs sniff through our car, luckily Molly is odorless so they found nothing and the result was no more than a ticket for trespassing. Still, not my favorite experience with Molly, life gets reckless and troublesome when you start to mess with hard drugs.

                Another thing I should mention, Molly was fueling the relationship. We were enjoying being high on a drug that made everything feel and seem amazing, it skyrockets the happiness levels in your brain. The only problem was the fallout, the comedown, the aftermath. That’s when Molly gets real. That’s when you see the bad side of Molly. The lows were beyond unbearable but the highs were enchanted. The sex was mind-blowing. Orgasming on Molly is one of the greatest feelings I have ever had to this day.

                But every party has to end, every high has a come down. And you might not be ready for that. Especially if you already suffer from severe depression, suicidal ideation, OCD, and Post traumatic stress disorder. Someone like me is too fragile for drugs like these, that is why your parents say stay away. But then again that might be part of the reason we want to try them in the first place. My mother told me I had an addictive personality at age 8 and today I do have one, and very addictive one. Did I always or did she put the thought in my head? Isn’t that a question worth asking, worth wondering about? The answer is, probably not, it’s not worth dwelling on.

Coming down from Molly is like your worst break up ever multiplied by ten. Now imagine if you were on Molly when your girlfriend, who you believed you would marry, broke up with you while you were on the drug, and because you were on the drug? What would you do? I slit my wrist.

                Molly is a drug that makes you want more, almost makes you need more, because you end up in such a dark place when you come down. Your brain chemistry has been altered to a point where you have literally put yourself in danger.

                I was trying to escape my present reality, so I self-medicated. For a while I just smoked a lot of weed, and then I was introduced to Molly by Molly. Sometimes I was on top of the world, and others I was trapped in the lowest of lows. This medicating was far from conventional, and it’s safe to say that doing Molly day after day for nearly a week is far from healthy. In my mind it was for “creative purposes”. This escapade starting getting expensive, especially as my tolerance increased. The first time I realized I might have a problem was when I got a nosebleed and the sun hadn’t even gone down yet. I had snorted enough in the day time that I got a nosebleed. Wow, you would think this realization might led to saving myself but no I continued on a downward spiral towards a rock bottom that would end up being the experience I used to write my best-selling book.

                My life was becoming a rollercoaster. I was living my life in waves, in highs and lows, literally high and coming down from being high. Extreme highs were followed by even more extreme lows. I was constantly writing, sometimes I would type or write so long my hands would literally hurt and would be sore the next day. Was what I was writing anything worth reading? Who knows? Who defines what is worth reading anyway? Opera with her book club sticker, hah fuck that shit, I’d rather get a good review from someone like Chuck Palaniuk. How does one constitute immaterial, intangible value? How do we go about measuring something immeasurable and intangible?

At one point I finally checked my bank account and I had spent over $4000 in the last thirty days. And only about 800 of that could be chalked up to food, rent, and utility expenses. Shit was getting real. I was using loans that were for school, rent, books, my car payment, and groceries but instead flushing the money away on drugs. This money wasn’t even really mine to spend. I was already accounted for, it had a home, or at least it was supposed to. Instead some drug dealer ended up with it.

                My money was spent on weed, alcohol, molly, and flowers for Molly. We would get in huge fights and she loved flowers so I got them for her whenever we got in a huge fight, which happened more and more, especially when money was tight. We worked together at the same restaurant, we both started working more shifts. Desperate for money, but hating ourselves for the back breaking and annoying work we were accustomed to. Waiting tables is nothing to write home about, it is quite honestly a really shitty job. The money is good but people treat you like shit and you are expected to be perfect and multitask like a madman.

                Is it weird that my love for molly felt stronger than anything I had ever experienced? What was happening to me? Was I becoming an addict, was I an addict for love or drugs? I never intended to be this kind of person. Could I really be an addict? The truth is no one wakes up one day saying they want to get addicted to a hard drug, it is a process that happens over time, slowing but surely. It is quite a slippery slope. Drugs can be tricky like that.

                Molly was the last straw with my girlfriend, I admitted I was rolling on Molly and she said she couldn’t stay. I think it was the drugs that made me a manic depressive. One day I was the luckiest guy in the world, living a dream, with “it all” so to speak, and then I lost all that and I felt utterly hopeless. With all the shenanigans I’ve been through sometimes I feel like I am living like a modern day Gatsby, I love that book, I can’t wait to see the movie. Once a upon a time I was living the ideal life but there is a thin line between living the good life and living a dangerous one. Consider a very literal thin line, whether it be coke or Molly, this thin line represents something. It represents crossing a threshold, you aren’t just smoking weed anymore, and you are snorting something up your nose. You have been Californicated and life is starting to be one big reckless party. You are the epitome of all that is wrong with America. Did I say you, I meant me, I am the epitome of the great American shame.

                The movie fight club has been very influential in my life, not only have a seen it countless times but the first time I saw it I was around ten. To this day I still believe Fight Club has changed my life, conceptually it is my favorite movie and book. I believe Chuck Palaniuk to be a genius. One time someone told me that my writing kind of sounded like Chuck, at first I was beyond excited but then I was like wait, I want to sound like me. It is great to have role models, or mentors or people who inspire you but don’t emulate them to a tee, be a version of yourself, no one else.

                This is my Fight Club and the first rule is there are no rules. People remember ideas and concepts. Sometimes they remember the man that incites that idea, for me, Edward Norton and Brad Pitt will be forever iconic for their performances in Fight Club. Stories aren’t necessarily true or false, but it does not matter, it doesn’t matter how plausible or possible something is, all that matters is the concepts, the relationship between author and reader that is established when you pick up any book.

The role of a character is either given or chosen. We can occupy many roles if we choose to, we can stay true to who we are and who we want to be or we can put on personas and fabricate who we are. Fundamentally, deception is a part of life. If you wear a mask for long enough period of time, you might just forget who you really are underneath that mask. Pretending isn’t good for us humans, telling lies and pretending to be what we are not, that should be left for virtual realities, video games, and Hollywood. As someone very close to me once said, “secrets make people sick”.  They say an artist uses lies to tell the truth.

The reason we forget the man but cherish the idea is because the man is flawed, we might glorify him in death but he is flawed regardless of whether or not we recognize that fact. Sometimes we try to hide that, funerals, wakes and eulogies are a perfect example. I am a firm believer that life is what you make it and sometimes I wish I could use photoshop on the real world. I wish I could photoshop all my scars away.  I wish my life was a dry erase board and I could just erase away all the pain and regret.

At the end of the day for me, what is important is getting through that day and trying to be happy throughout it. You can’t control everything, you can’t be happy all the time, but there is a lot you are in control of. It would be nice to give your own interview, so you could ask yourself the questions you want to be asked. And maybe then they wouldn’t focus on such minuscule details and cherry-pick you to make you seem like a fool. It feels as if the skeletons have officially exited my closet and they have entered my apartment. I am living with them in my living room and bedroom.

I’m just an introvert, I cannot help it. I sit in a club feeling socially awkward, stuck in my head, far from being in the moment. Wishing I could stay in reality but really I’m somewhere else. Thinking is what makes something good or bad, Shakespeare said it, check Hamlet.

I was indulging my dark side. Drugs alcohol, anything that was available was my poison. I would smoke a whole pack of cigs in a night if I got them for free. If I didn’t earn it, I didn’t give a fuck about how recklessly I consumed or used whatever it was. To me catastrophic, black and white thinking and rumination are second nature to me, in fact they are more natural to me than the world natural itself. I feel weird and awkward. I just want to escape. I want to run away. But I don’t know where to go.

                I have everyone rooting for me but myself. I feel jaded. I’m trapped in the everyday struggle of life. One night I even asked God for help and answers, I hadn’t prayed in almost five years. I never really believed in that stuff. I believe in something bigger than me, but that something was just not involved with our humanly affairs. It feels like I’m at the cusp of something, maybe even oblivion. I am trembling, I want molly. I need Molly. I need them both. There is no escaping the direction I am headed. Although I know things are getting worse I have no idea how the story ends. But it sure feels like oblivion.  

                Molly and I were spending almost every day together. Life was magnificent, euphoric even. This might have been the first time I was actually enjoying life, doesn’t that sound fucked up? At one point I decide to buy a lot of Molly, buy in bulk and you get a good deal, like Sams, or BJ’s. This would prove to be a terrible decision, as my mom or anyone’s mom or maybe anyone could have told me it was not a good idea. I was thinking about the short term, and the short term alone. I wanted molly, I wanted money and I wanted to make everyone happy. The addictiveness of my personality did not help this situation. These high risk, high reward situations were exhilaration but also terrible for my anxiety, I almost felt as if on the verge of panic attacks. Of course these situations were the worst things for me, I could always remain cool on the outside, kind of like someone who can get incredibly wasted and act totally sober, I am one of those people. Jump forward a little bit and I’ve acquired 30 grams of molly. Whoa…

Shit was about to get real, real fucking fun, and really reckless. Hopefully this would be my first and last big Molly deal. I was living both a dream and a nightmare, I felt like mac Miller or some other young rapper or actor who was blowing up and enjoying myself. Problem was I hadn’t accomplished anything yet. I can’t tell if I should be pleased with myself or scared of myself. Can my potential be used for something good, or will I waste away as a drug addict.

In my own head I am pure genius, I have already made myself overrated and I haven’t even wrote a book yet. But I tell people I’m going to be the best writer that ever lived, I feel like all those rappers, on their tracks saying best rapper, dead or alive.  Am I flawed in the most tragic way of all or am I destined to do something great, do I have a gift? Is writing really what I am meant to do? These are the questions I struggle with each and every day. I aim to be noble, I believe my intentions are good but I have fucked up a lot of good things in my life with a lot of very good people. Should I be ashamed of myself or proud of myself for what I actually have accomplished? This is a difficult question. Who or what defines noble anyway, society or me, or you? The truth is we must learn hard truths and lessons in order to define what noble even is.

The sad truth is we are all flawed and the beautiful part is that we are all flawed in our own way. We are individualistic, like a fingerprint. I feel like the great American failure. I feel as if I am what all that is wrong with our world, especially America, but then I think that is selfish of me, to think I have that much impact on the world. I am stuck in a battle between thoughts and decisions I cannot decide upon. I struggle with everything. Does this make me self-conscious or self-centered?

I already becoming Californicated, and I live in the Albany, New York and come from the suburbs. But I am exploiting sex, drugs, music, unconventional lifestyles and bad life decisions. For me, my first encounter with Molly was the beginning of the end, it was the start of the tempest building in the teapot. I was headed to a point of no return, something had to give and unfortunately, all that I was doing, Molly included, was not the answer. I was succumbing to addiction. I couldn’t go to sleep at night. I woke up in the morning nauseous to the point of vomiting. I couldn’t stand myself as company. We all think we are better than we truly are, we think we won’t succumb to the things we are told to stay away from but sometimes we do. Sometimes we become all that we despise.

I can’t tell if I am doing the impossible and making history or doing something no one should ever do. We think it would be us, we think we wouldn’t die in that car accident, we think we aren’t statistics, we think we are that one in a million, we think we are indestructible. But we are not. But the truth remains, we can be outliers, we can be the exception to the rule, we can change the world if we aspire to do so. We are truly capable, that is what makes us human, we ask questions, we get answers, we solve problems, we enjoy life, and we find ways to be happy and succeed. We are human, both flawed and as close to perfection as it gets. Once that person in the mirror becomes the one you loath, the one you hate the fallout is intense.

I can barely tell what sympathy is anymore, I think everyone is out to get me. I am overly paranoid and anxious. Is this warranted concern or just paranoia? I do seem to be on a destructive path. Who knows? Hijinks are occurring all around me, every direction seems like the right one, but I can’t seem to decide on anything. All I know is that I might need rehab soon.

I stopped living life according to the plan I created for myself a long time ago. I don’t even care about my appearance anymore, I rarely even shower. And I have always been someone that girls found attractive, but I care little about anything these days. I feel hopeless. My brain is at war with itself. I know I am a warrior but why am I always at war with something or someone. I have battled through issues before. I have had plenty of tough days but I have had good ones too. The problem is when you start confusing wants with needs and you can’t distinguish the two. Perspective and interpretation play a very important role in our lives. It affects the way we see the world we live in, the way we behave in it.

Molly helped me multitask at an all-time high, when in actuality I was nearing an all-time low. I was becoming consumed by drugs and escaping my present reality with drugs. I am having identity issues. I put on masks. I don’t show anyone who I really am. I am scared they will see the real me. I am scared of what they might think if they really knew me. I have become fake. I pretend too much.  I have been fake more than enough for one entire lifetime, it makes me sick that I have done this, I hate fake people. I just want something to make me immortal, that’s why I need to write this book. I want something that can be timeless and last over centuries. I want the good vibes to keep on rolling, I want the champagne to flow just I want Molly mixed into my drink. This self-medicating, I have been doing a little bit too much of.

                Thankfully, I’ve been sober since my last trip to the hospital. I needed three stitches in my wrist after I used a knife to cut it. It was after a fight with Molly, ironically, it was about being on Molly. She walked out and said she was never coming back. I don’t know if I really blame her. I wouldn’t want to be with me, I can barely stand my own company.

Life is about making memories, and finding ways not to tarnish them. The worst feeling is wishing you could alter a memory, or do something differently. We always wish we could have a second chance to do things right. In actuality do you think we could really do things any better, or would we make the same mistakes we made before? Do things really happen for a reason?  Scars are so permanent. Things that are permanent are powerful. I have tattoos and they mean a lot to me. I revel in the fact that they are forever. I like them for their artistic expression. Sometimes I just want to cover up all my scars with tattoos, turn something ugly into something beautiful. It’s like altering a memory, we take pictures to make moments last forever and seem infinite. Then we become infinite. May your memory be eternal.

At the time I thought she was wrong, I thought I was just using drugs to be creative. I believed I was just trying to be the writer I am meant to be, that’s what I said at least, and I truly believed it at the time. Until I came down from the high, that’s when shit got real. I ran out after her, before slitting my wrist, I was in bare feet and nothing but jeans and a white beater, the look I saw on her face was pure disgust. She rolled down the window, definitely upset that I had followed her and said, “why don’t you just go snort more shit up your nose.” I had nothing to say, I put my head down, stuffed my hands into my pockets and turned to walk back to my apartment. She was right, I was a mess, I didn’t deserve her, I wasn’t an artist. I was an addict. But could I be both, that is what I wanted to find out. More importantly could I be an artist without being an addict. At that moment I felt useless, unworthy, and utterly hopeless. I felt as if no one would ever love me again, this was me reaching rock bottom, I slit my wrist minutes later.

                Everything after that was a blur, when the ambulance came I could barely understand what anyone was saying to me. I just did my best to answer their questions, I complied and was appreciative and said sorry more times than I could count.  I was groggy that day, but after finally getting to take a nap and get some rest I convinced as team of psychologist that what I had done was not a suicide attempt, but more of a cry for help.

                Everyone still looks at me skeptically, like they don’t believe me. They do not look at me the same, but maybe that is just my perspective. Maybe I am just different now. I did survive slitting my wrist, a bit of a “near life experience” as Tyler Durden would call it. I look at the tattoo on my forearm, it reads “I’m capable of anything.” And I ask myself the question, am I really capable of anything? I think to myself, what am I not capable of?

Hero, villain, or somewhere in between, where you end up is up to you. So choose wisely. I realized I was in the process of becoming something I never wanted to be. My character was deteriorating before my eyes. I could feel my demise coming. So I wrote about it and decided to change it and make the future something different, something I was proud of.

You can’t see the world fully if your narrow minded

Do I have insomnia or did I just see fight club too many times ?