Day Eleven

A picture of something I hate:

Vassar, sometime sophomore year.

Look at me.  Look at me!

I don't hate myself.  I don't hate addiction (any more than I hate any of my other diseases). But there are things in my memory, friends, to which I would take a sandblaster if I could.

About two years before this moment, I was at another party.  Such beautiful girls, such perfect guys - these were the elite of the elite of the Los Angeles-area private-school set.  I did not belong.  Which is why my brother found me hiding in the laundry room of his girlfriend's Malibu family beach house.  My anxiety in this rarefied environment was a thing breathing down my neck, silencing every word I thought to speak, casting down my eyes and locking my hands in my pockets - I had to escape it.  Ian lifted the Heineken from the case, handed it to me, and said "You need to lighten up."  This will help.

By the time this picture was taken, I was among the elite of the elite - of an Eastern liberal-arts college.  My friends were the beautiful girls, the perfect guys - and everybody else, because I accepted and celebrated everyone as they were.  It was a promise I made to my awkward younger self and was pleased to keep.

Look at the price I paid to be King Shit.  I don't know if I ever could have shed that anxiety without chemical assistance; I believe I could have.  I know I could have if I'd known then even a tenth of what I know now about the nature of self-esteem.  But I chose the least certain route - I made the most unhealthy decision possible - and this is the sweaty, haggard face of the addiction that resulted.

What I hate is how swiftly the negative consequences of addiction tainted everything I had; I hate the sick ironies of my past.  I would have found my way to happiness at Vassar without the drugs; with them, I found some happiness, but I also dropped out of college.

That's just the top memory on the Sandblast List; all the times I said something I came to regret, or hurt someone with my careless words and actions, are on the list as well.  The time my sister and I got into a knock-down drag-out that ended with her scornful "Whatever David, just go have another drink" - that's up there.

Tomorrow, I complicate this thesis.