an odyssey through the mind of a recovering pothead

it's been 15 days since my last inhale of sweet mary jane. i'm not going to turn this into an MA diary, but it's a big deal for me. for the past 5 years, i've been a habitual marijuana smoker - a purist even because i took a lot of pride in always breaking my buds by hand and rolling with artisan pride.

although i didn't smoke that much, i was addicted. i used to count the minutes so that i could get home, shed my pants and bra, roll one perfect little joint and smoke half of it before i sank languidly into my couch for a night of mindless television.

loserville

sounds lame now, but at the time it was sheer bliss. it was my goddamn canadian right to get high whenever i wanted. and of course i still socialized, went to parties, talked on the phone, did enough stuff to stay on the other side of loserville. but after 5 years of living on my own... i realized i had nothing to show for it.

for the longest time i've longed to be an artist or a musician or both. and i lazily pursued these things by doodling sporadically in a sketchbook, and i bought an electric piano (a la Squints prize money) 2 years ago - in case i suddenly woke up one day as mozart or chopin or something. meanwhile, i smoked and watched a LOT of tv most of which i don't remember.

when shit starts to roll, it snowballs

and so, quite recently a series of events seemingly unrelated set into motion a 360* change in my life:

1. quit my old job
2. read a book
3. went to a halloween party

lobotomy

quitting my old job was the second most difficult thing i ever had to do. the first being when i dropped out of high school and ran away from home. i'm not being dramatic, but leaving my last agency was really emotionally difficult. and when i realized i could no longer rely on my job to provide enough stimulus in my life to keep me out of loserville... something inside me snapped pretty fucking hard.

salvation

the only thing that kept me mentally stable was a book that jen lent me, eat pray love, which i read so slowly in an attempt to draw out the good vibes for as long as i could. in a way, i was addicted to this book, needed it like a raft in the middle of a stormy ocean, and was terrified that the sky would fall in squash me like a puny, irrelevant lady bug if it ended. well, it ended, but nothing bad happened. surprise!

friends

i went to wes and amanda's annual halloween party in beeton, on. it was the First Night I Didn't Smoke and when i realized that i didn't miss it. i still had the best time playing a hand drum while wes and mark jammed on the guitar and mandolin; i had a really stimulating conversation about the ages of known universe; i woke up early and did a couple of sun salutations; and it was just... good. pure goodness. it wasn't the first time i hadn't smoked for a night or two, or even a week or two. but it was the first time i wasn't counting the days 'til my time-out was over. it was the first time i was adding up the days that i don't feel the need to escape from reality anymore. it's totally like "look, mommy, no hands!"

it was also at this party when i asked mark to give me music lessons. turns out, he was looking to give them and we agreed to start that very next sunday. auspicious!

being a fully functional human being

so now, my daily routine is this:

7:00 - roll out of bed from intensely vivid dreams that are easily and immediately analyzed
8:30 - drink homemade mexican coffee with instant oatmeal breakfast
9 - 12 - work
12 - 1 - eat delicious lunch from le gourmand
1 - 5 - work
6 - 7 - yoga
7 - 8 - piano
8 - 9 - dinner
9 - 10 - tv
10 - 11 - reading

then my weekends are filled with more yoga, my music lesson, visiting friends, lazy sunday breakfast, chores and other productive shit, and whatever arty thing i feel like doing like writing, drawing, etc.

balance.

now, i'm not stupid. i know one of these days, something will trip up this perfect, cyclical system i have devised to help myself become the person i feel like i should be. but for the first time since i declared my independence, i have the mental capacity to sustain and accommodate the demands of time. maybe i'll smoke again one day. maybe i'll start taking the language classes my mom's been bugging me to sign up for. maybe i'll start learning how to do my own taxes. whatever.

i'm just not afraid of running out of time to vegetate because i still vegetate a lot, just in small doses... just long enough for me to get bored and get off my ass and do something like carve a halloween pumpkin on the 12th of november, or write a long-awaited blog post.