Lost

I sit at my desk staring at a phone that has more computing capability than the ones used to take man to the moon in 1969. I’m in my mid 20’s and swiping away at all the profiles that pop on the screen. Some are white, black, brown, tan. Some are short, tall. Some are athletic, fat, petite, slim, and thick. They all share the same thing. The idea of comfort. Someone to confide in, laugh with, cry, and sleep with. Even when I was a teenager I knew the world would change once dating apps became more mainstream, but I didn’t expect it to envelop my generation the way it has. Well we saw it coming. What am I thinking? I’m an early “Gen z’r”. I grew up playing outside, exploring and stepping into risk. I grew up really when radical changes in the world were exploding. The United States was involved in the Middle East, the economic meltdown of 07-08, we elected the first black president in American history, the first iPhone, the real smartphone was released and started a new technology revolution.  Bernie Madoff was exposed as America's biggest fraudster. The Harry Potter movies were coming into theater’s hot off presses. In the craziness of the financial crisis SpaceX launched its first rocket in September 2008. 

As most Early “Gen Z” and “late millennials” were coming of age and we started forming our own thoughts and ideas, the news was plagued with division and fear that’s continued to this very moment. It seemed the dread of the world consumed at least my life. My family was avid news watchers and everyday it seemed that some school got shot up in another American tragedy, a bomb blew up in Boston and caused a city wide shutdown, North Korea was constantly challenging the West, Detroit filed for bankruptcy. For me it was hard to find positives in life from a young age. My biological father was an absent figure that turned into complete absence from my life in my preteens. My mom started getting serious with a new man that would become my father figure but who was this man? 

Where’s my dad? 

What do you mean he’s not coming? 

Friends and neighborhood kids had the perfect set up. Brothers and sisters, pets, and Mom and Dad to look after them. I went to a private school during the time Dad was disappearing. Everyday I walked into that school thinking I am like the other kids there but I was not one of them. They came from trusts and inheritance from the family. One of my classmates was the son of the town supervisor. 

I switched to the public school system for junior high and felt even more alienated. I wrote and spoke differently than everyone else it seemed like. On top of that my relationship with my future step dad was shaky, so Mom and I moved into an apartment but they still saw each other. For mom to make rent and take care of us I was left to my own devices. In 6th grade I tried my first sips of liquor, smoked my first pack of cigarettes, and my first joint. Mom and my step dad sent me to a day summer camp before 6th grade started so I can make some friends. 

The camp was fun and we took field trips to all types of places but I made superficial friends. A lot of them went to a completely different school district and the others I would see in school but we acted like complete strangers. I don't know why. I had a crush on a girl at that camp and she went to the same school and was in the same grade as me but she was more popular and I was too scared to ever really approach when school started. I spent more and more time at my childhood best friend's house out in the country an hour away from my town. When we both hung out it was like an escape in a way. For kids 12 and 13 we smoked weed, and drank his parents vodka almost every weekend for until we were in highschool. For 7th and 8th grade everyday in Lancaster, New York felt like autumn. Everything had a gray shade through my eyes. I had horrible social anxiety like any other kid at that age probably and alcohol at Daryl’s was my escape. We were cool and all but vodka called for me and I answered at 14 years of age. I made friends in 7th and 8th grade but it was more like people to smoke weed with and drink stolen beers from the local Rite aid. I think they went out of business years later and were renamed all to CVS. I was doing well in school, I memorized everything I took notes but after writing them down I never looked at them again. The answers came up in bright lights when I needed them during exams. 

I never had friends over because I didn’t have true real friends at that time. Mom would yell and shriek why I don’t hangout with anyone and always just go to Daryl’s. I told him some stuff going on in my life but I kept it pushed down and drowned it with liquor when it started coming up. For a 14 year old it became an almost weekly occurrence that I brought a water bottle or Arnold palmer bottle to school mixed with vodka and apple juice. If you get just the right amount of apple juice it completely takes away the burn of vodka. 

Starting 8th grade Mom and I moved to another apartment to the opposite side of town. The apartment was nice but my room started having the lingering smell of weed and it wasn't long until I was caught. The first intervention was Mom, stepdad and I watched the local news stations documentary on teens starting with pot and progressed to other drugs. I toned most of it out thinking “Yea that’s not me, I’m not going to wake up one day and be like I’m thinking of smoking crack”.  I stopped smoking for like 2 weeks and then continued what I did before this time my dumbass being even less secretive of it. 

I had a procedure done in 8th grade and I was prescribed pain killers. Hydrocodone even at a small dose for a skinny 14-15 year old is enough to make your whole body go cold, but then make your muscles relax and drown your thoughts. My first time getting cross faded with an opiate and weed was when I was laying in bed the day after surgery in pain and mom went to the grocery store. When I knew she was gone I went to my stash and pulled out a nug from the bag and my bowl. I went to the kitchen and took a pill out of the container. My legs are shaky because this will be my first time trying something like this and I don’t know what’s about to happen. I got in bed and opened the window. I crushed up the hydrocodone on my nightstand and sprinkled the dust over the weed in the bowl. I got closer to the window, flicked the lighter and drew the flame over the bowl head and inhaled. I was listening to the Juicy J album “Stay trippy” during this, and the beats and vocals played over and over in my head after I stopped smoking. When I finished the bowl it took seconds for the craziest feeling I have ever experienced to take over me. The euphoria washed over me but following it was a sense of panic. 

Holy shit I need to put the bowl and weed away!

Fuck the room reeks too. 

I buried the evidence back into its spot deep into my closet. The aroma of pot filled my senses and I rushed to the kitchen to get the air freshener and sprayed half the container in my room. She would never notice. I assured myself. 

It didn’t work, mom freaked out. She didn’t know I crushed up the pill but smelled the weed. From that point she was probably figuring I was the beginning of an addict or something. 

I hung out with this one kid in 8th grade that was a horrible influence on me. Chilling with him I stole more from the local rite aid. Beer was my choice. He introduced me to a group of guys than in reality were drug dealers and grooming him to become one too. These guys were in their late teens, early 20’s scum of the earth type people that were hanging out with teens as young as us? Smoking their weed was always off. It wasn't just weed there was some powder on it sometimes but it didn’t make me feel like how my crossfade made me feel. It was something else and to this day I still don’t have a clue what it was. Around this time the weed Daryl and I would go half on when I visited I later came to find out was laced with some cocaine. It wasn't from Daryl the guy we were getting the bud from was doing it.