God can this really be my life? What a fucking failure.

You’d never believe it if you looked at me, but I used to be so much better then this… my phone used to be ringing off the hook; I used to have plenty of friends and tons of people to hang out with and talk to. When did the spiral begin?

I began smoking tons of pot with some friends and I stopped hanging out with anyone who didn’t get high. It seemed benign enough at the time, we’d heard all the propaganda but we saw it for what it was. We were just having fun, it was college after all. What I didn’t realize was I was slowly changing.

Eventually nothing else mattered to me except getting high. I didn’t care about girls, I didn’t care about my old goals, I just wanted to get high. I ended up dropping out of school my sophomore year because I couldn’t focus on school anymore. I found a shitty job, came home every night and smoked my brains out. This wasn’t what I wanted.

I decided to uproot myself and move to Chicago where my brother lived, I thought if I left my stoner buddies behind I could start fresh and make up for lost time. It was a great idea, but it didn’t work out—all I did was run away from my problem and didn’t solve anything. Within a month I found a hookup and started with my old routine again. I decided that since I’d saved a bunch of money living at home that I’d take a “vacation” for myself and not work for a few weeks. A few weeks turned into a few months.

I wasn’t living, I just existed. Everyday for was a constant cycle of getting high and burning out, day in and day out. I didn’t make any friends because I was ashamed of what a burnout I’d become, I barely even left my apartment. I stopped caring about myself, I lived like a pig, I ate like crap and I didn’t set one goal for myself.

The worst part is I lied about everything to everyone. I told my friends at home that I’d stopped smoking and I told my family I had a decent job. It was all sunshine and lollipops as far as they knew but I knew the truth. I knew what a fuckup I was and I couldn’t admit it to anyone else. I was raised to be so much more, so much better than what I was but I couldn’t bring myself to ask for help. Maybe it was pride, maybe it was selfishness—I’m not sure what it was but to this day I still battle with honesty. 

Eventually with my smoking habit, I began to run out of money. I had to go look for a job and actually contribute something to society for once. I found a job at a local retail store and started working, once I began interacting with our staff and costumers again I began to realize just how lonely I’d become. There was a girl who worked with me, we flirted a lot and seemed to get along pretty well together, so I asked her out for a drink.

She was just getting out of a serious relationship, so we took it slow but eventually I pressured her to become exclusive. She wasn’t ready but didn’t want to lose me, so she reluctantly agreed. She didn’t realize it then, but she hated me for doing that to her.