Ah, the stars.
I remember sitting on the roof of my childhood home. I used to climb out of the window on the side of my house. This led to the top of my garage. Then I would proceed upwards and climb to the top of my childhood home.
I remember this, late at night. My house was on a main road in a small, but typical suburban town. I say typical because we were all equipped with our own secrets and our own private dysfunctions.
I never knew what people thought or how they felt. I certainly never assumed that anything I thought or felt would be understood or relative.
Who would understand?
Who would think these things?
I assumed I was alone with my thoughts and alone with my emotions. I never thought much about the chemistry that took place as an aftermath of my thinking. I was too young to understand things like this.
I never realized how my thoughts and feelings were interconnected. Thus, I never knew why my anxiety took me on unavoidable trips.
I was neither wealthy or poor.
I was just me.
I was not ugly nor exceptional by any means.
No, I was only me.
I was a kid.
Just a kid . . .
Skinny and puny and uncomfortable.
I was unlike other people. Or, so I thought.
I thought that I was terminally different and unlike anyone or everybody else.
But why?
I was weak in every sense of the word. I had no confidence and no real friends to confide in.
I wanted more.
Or no.
Wait . . .
I wanted to be more.
I wanted to feel something better than the confusing or impending doom. More than anything else, I wanted to be free from the bondage of my young and insecure assumptions.
I wanted to break the chains of my habitual thinking and somehow, I could be restored or redeemed.
I never thought that I would be anyone’s idea of love or affection.
At the same time, I always believed that there was someone out there, looking up at the stars and wondering about me.
I remember sitting on the roof at night and looking upwards at the sky.
The streets were mainly quiet. The hour was usually late.
And me, I sat with my smokes of choice, usually a Marlboro Red, but I went through spurts of smoking Camels and there was a briefer stint when I smoked Lucky Strikes.
But Lucky’s were hell on the lungs.
There I was, armed with my pack of smokes, and a trusty little flask. I would sip the worst of all the gins, which I acquired from a stolen jug that was swiped from a friend’s house.
I had a few of them, actually.
I would sit on the roof for hours and be fine.
I took to this like a sad romantic tragedy.
I thought about saying goodbye to everyone and everything.
And I wondered if I was the only one who ever thought this way.
I thought what my life might have been like if I were born in the next town or one town over from that.
Who would I have been?
Would I have been popular or cool?
Or maybe I wouldn’t have given in to the same pressures.
Maybe I wouldn’t have believed the same lies.
Maybe I’d have had a different version of cool.
Or if anything, maybe the ideas that held me back would mean nothing.
I never knew the answers to these questions.
But I asked them
If I am being honest, sometimes, I ask them still.
I would look up at the stars and practice my speeches. I would practice what I would say to the girl that I thought about. I’d practice my goodbyes that I planned to say to my so-called friends.
I rehearsed my rebellions here.
I practiced how I planned to walk away from the so-called crowd that I hung around.
And for the moment, I was like . . .
yeah.
That’s what I’ll do.
I don’t think the roof was about euphoria. This was not about the result of the gin. I don’t think this was about escape as it was more about a realization that I knew I needed to get away.
When the motivation was different for me and the nods took place, I still took to the roof despite the dope in my bloodstream. Despite the sickness or the aches, I still took to the roof just to be closer to the heavens.
I spent hours on that roof.
I considered the meanings of life. And yes, even then, I always believed that life had more than one meaning. But that was then.
The world is a very different place now. I am different too.
I am nothing like I was. At the same time, I still have the need to be more.
I want to feel more too.
I want to feel something other than the same fears or worry that something about me is too dissimilar.
I do not want to believe that I am too far gone to be loved or wanted.
Back then, I was young and wondering if anyone would ever love me or want me.
I am not young by any means. I am not the same person nor do I live with the same struggles.
No, I have brand-new struggles now.
I have new fears and financial concerns.
I have worries of loneliness.
I have bouts in my head, which I go back and forth with.
I don’t smoke.
I don’t drink and the dope gods and I have parted ways, long ago, and in a lifetime that is far, far away.
But. . .
I could use the redeeming feeling of sitting on a rooftop and looking up at the stars.
I could use a sign or a feeling that no matter what, something good is waiting for me.
Do I regret my steps?
Some of them.
When it comes to the question, “Was the juice worth the squeeze?”
I don’t know . . .
The jury is still out on that one.
I think of where I am now and I submit that this is only a chapter in my life.
This is a phase.
Same as my youth was only a phase, so is this.
So, I repeat the same as I always say.
I know there is love out there for me.
It’s good to be high above the world sometimes.
The sky and its floods of stars gaze down on me as I gaze up at them
I know there is a plan.
I know the Universe well.
And as for Her, Heavenly Mother, and the milk of all stars,
pray for me.
It’s nice though, to think about the summer winds when you’re high above the city.
Alone or not . . .
The moon is a beautiful thing and despite our distance,
so are you
always~
The Written Addiction 