Things that have led us here

I lost my grandfather when I was ten years old, in the summer of 1993. He was the closest thing I ever had to a father. He was a detective. He liked funny jokes. Therefore, he liked dirty jokes. Like most men that have seen War, he liked the drink. He liked taking the charcoal from burnt corks of wine bottles and painting our faces like Indians. Family legend says he was part Native American. My grandfather tried to instill a kind discipline in me. He never once raised a hand in anger. He encouraged me in school and life. My grandfather was my best friend and at times he felt like my only friend.  
 
His death was the first time I truly felt a sense of loss. It was deeper than anything I had ever known. Our family remained extremely close in our mourning. We have not been as close since. My solitary friend was Ishwar, whose loyalty has remained unmatched. However, Ishwar always went to his dad’s over the summer.

Always a shy kid, I retreated even further within myself. I loved puzzle games, I loved magic. I disassembled everything in the house. I read books about the unknown and how things work. I fell in love with music. I did all this and still had the time to complain to my mom about boredom.  
 
My standardized test scores placed me in the top one percentile of the other kids most years of elementary and middle school. Adults told me how far I could go, as I watched people I loved like my Uncle Jay and my brother fall apart to drugs and alcohol. Intelligence is a cruel attribute. I did not fit in well with the others, having developed a keen dislike for stupidity and conformity. I became at times paranoid and hyper-aware. At times, I became so sad I just wanted to stay in bed and watch movies all day. 
 
In middle school, something wonderful happened. I somehow became great friends with other people that were also intelligent and damaged. Other people that were just as put-off by the social cliques and anti-intellectualism that seemed to permeate the way of adults and our peers. It was such an amazing time. We listened to exciting and rebellious music. We made videos and published zines.  

By way of these friends, I fell in love for the first time. It was with a girl so beautiful outside the standards the adults had set up. She completely blew my mind in her bravery and intelligence. The way that she was able to stand fundamentally in opposition to the cookie-cutter ideals placed upon us by society in such a graceful, intelligent, and downright fucking cool way made me feel at once humbled and energized.  

I felt like I could share most anything with her and at times we were too close. My depression was still there, but I knew that perhaps not so deep down she felt it too. We talked for hours and many times fought. Between teenage fights, walking around downtown Stuart, I learned that depression could be a beautiful melancholy thing. 

As all things end, so did our relationship. People change and mature. She grew ahead of me and one day it was over. This was the second time I truly felt loss. I did not take it well. In my hormonal rage I burned everything she had ever given me. I skipped lots of school. I sat depressed in my room, listening to all the saddest music my thirteen year old self could procure while using up long distance calls to Stuart to bitch about life.  
 
The summer before high school was spent trying to escape this gaping depression and the monotony of suburbia. Our zine had been shut down by the adults and none of us really had a means of getting out of town. All we could do was play video games and try to hack dial-ups for porn. My friends and others in our social circle had fallen into drugs. Having been vehemently opposed to stupidity, I considered myself Straight-Edge. I valued my intellect and I saw no point in dulling myself. I also saw what had happened to people like my Uncle and my brother. So, I hated drugs. 
 
Then, on one particularly boring day that summer, I sat with my friend who had been wanting me to try weed. I don’t know what came over me. Perhaps it was a mixture of the escapism we had developed growing up in the sterile suburbs and my pure curiosity that had gotten me in trouble in the past. Suddenly I considered myself open to it. So we robbed what we could from my brother and went out into the woods of Tequesta. 
 
At first I felt unaffected, but after too long - it had all went away. The depression, my grandfather dying, my relationship ending, being poor, being uncool, being bored - it all just went away. I felt happy. I felt downright ecstatic. I hadn’t felt that way in so long. Why had I been so opposed to this? It seemed harmless.  
 
The escape proved addicting, though. Since we couldn’t always get weed, we began experimenting with other drugs. Back then “other drugs” pretty much consisted of psychedelics and alcohol. This sometimes brought us to the wilder, darker sides of our consciousness. For a while, it brought us closer to one another but ultimately this experimentation took us all down very different paths. 

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