Happy to have these parts just waiting to be released! The roommate and I were up until the wee hours with chocolate cravings. We decided to settle for donuts, Tim Ho's being the only 24 hour place around, but it was pissing down rain all night... Coffee to start the engine makes more a smooth morning but a hell of an anxious afternoon.
Confused? Read Part 1 HERE
Confused? Read Part 1 HERE
After May twenty third of
the year before I met Cortez, I was working as hard as I could every day to
move past the haze of the drug phase. I started experiencing panic attacks
because no one could get past who I had been to see who I was now. My mother
especially clung on to the ‘poor-me’ identity, perfectly content in a twisted
way to define me as a hopeless, dirty “druggie.” Any attempt to convince her
otherwise was smacked down to earth like a meteorite. When I started getting
acne for the first time there was “no way” I wasn’t using and she started
reading my journals. She sent me texts quoting them word-for-word. She mocked
and punished me for going to parties after openly wishing that I would be
normal and go out with friends to ‘dance parties’. She screamed at me that I
was a slut, a whore, easy, and I should be ashamed of myself after seeing me
hugging two of my male friends. I was scarred for a long time, afraid to touch
anyone by accident or reveal any part of myself for fear it would be used
against me
I wanted desperately to
move out. I mean, what teenager doesn’t? At some point everyone’s mom is a
horrible, incomprehensible, ill-willed bitch who can’t possibly understand you.
The catch is good moms are trying to understand you; they want to help you be
the best you can be, to be the happiest you can be, and they only want the best
for you. They tell you about similar situations they were in with the hope that
it will be helpful in some way, and if nothing else will be good for bonding
and a laugh. When you’re a few years out of high-school, you look back and see
all that the ‘psycho’ stuff was actually quite logical and she did it out of
altruistic love. But my mother guarded her past like Fort Knox. What did she
have to hide? Was she embarrassed because I was following in her footsteps,
without knowing it? And if that was true, why wouldn’t she share wisdom or
advice when I needed it, let alone when I asked? It seemed awfully
self-centered to me that she quit trying to understand me. She happily decided
I fit the bill as the problem child who’s every embarrassing sign of existence
had be hidden lest someone give her a
sympathetic look that she was convinced meant, “Oh Linda, you terrible mother.
You sure screwed up with this one, you colossal failure.”
God, she was obsessed
with that role of single mother, and all the piteous attention she received
from it. I think that’s why she always looked for something to be wrong with me,
and made me believe that she was right.
I tried to improve my
attendance after I quit using any drug other than pot. It was impossible though
to ignore the whispers and smug looks whenever I showed up, and my panic
attacks worsened until one day I was bawling on the short walk to school.
“I can’t do it,” I sobbed
to myself before collapsing into a heap on the sidewalk. I lay there for a very
long time, no longer caring about what so-and-so would say. I had to leave or I
would lose myself in the murky depression I was wading ever deeper in. It
wasn’t the same womb that cushioned me and kept me safe in grade seven. If I
went back into this new, unfamiliar dark place, I felt I couldn’t come back
out.
The next semester I tried
to go back to the high school for one class, convinced I couldn’t pass math
without a live teacher. Erika, my only friend at the time besides David, told
me that many people were eagerly anticipating my return. She put it in much
nicer terms, but everyone was waiting to see if I looked as messed up as my
former friends, partying hard as rave season picked up. One of them, Josh, had
started coming to school high on coke and kept a water bottle full of vodka. He
often wore the same clothes for a few days straight, and it was common
knowledge that he was living in a tent since getting caught with drugs.
I was already cutting
class a week in. I felt like a fat seal awkwardly trying to make it through a
flaming hoop, all the while wondering why I couldn’t just chase fish and do
flips for fun in the sea. Erika and I would leave after the days lesson to roll
a joint at the park near my house. We’d promise to work on our homework
together after, knowing it was a lie meant to justify our lack of commitment.
We’d get high and listen to the birds, talking about the people we knew, the
drugs I had done and she was now experimenting with, the way things were and
how we thought they should be. She’d be texting furiously on her phone while I
took toke after toke, and before I knew it we’d be headed off to one of her
many older guy friends’ basement suites for bong rips. When I hadn’t been to my
one and only class for a week straight, I met with a counselor to get set up in
full time homeschool. I remember he kept asking why, why couldn’t I make it
work, what was so wrong at school that I got panic attacks. I couldn’t make him
understand because somewhere in his life, he felt like he belonged.
They say you’re a stoner
when you smoke pot alone, and maybe that’s why it felt so indescribably good to
have the house to myself five days a week. I swear pot was the driving force
that got me through the horrible highs and lows of chemical withdrawal. It
toned down the manic phases when I couldn’t sleep, and helped me to accept the
longer depressive ones. In the beginning, Erika and I smoked pot in the house
without shame, and alone I would hang out of my bedroom window. Whether it was
allowed or not was fuzzy in my mind. Mom’s standpoint on the matter wavered, as
has every other decision she’s ever made.
I’ll never forget the
first time Erika and I hot-boxed the basement washroom, sealing the gap between
the door and the floor with a towel to keep breathing in the smoke. We
febreezed the whole house but couldn’t wipe the guilt off our faces or the
glaze from our bloodshot eyes. When Mom came home, she put her hands on her
hips and very seriously said we were never to do it again.
“I like you better stoned,”
she laughed, concluding the brief ‘Respect’ lecture. She asked politely that we
not smoke in the house and we moved to the storage room outdoors. It came out
much later that this wasn’t allowed, nor was the shed or backyard, for fear
that the neighbours would smell; however, it was okay when her work friends
wanted to get high back there. Somewhere along the way, Erika and I won the
back deck. Furnished with comfortable chairs and excellent view of
neighbourhood birds, it was a prime spot to blaze. It became THE spot.
“Taylor,” my mom sighed after
coming home late one day. “Stop smoking dope in my house. I’m not stupid you
know. I know what it smells like.” She dropped her purse heavily onto the
counter, giving me the Why-do-you-make-me-do-this face.
“You asked me not to, and
I stopped,” I replied, my internal drawbridge rising. I sat up properly on the
couch. “I did it a couple times after you asked me to stop. But I understand
now that this is your house and it’s a reasonable rule. The porch is a much nicer
place, and besides I don’t want to fight with you anymore. You hear when I come
outside at night instead of leaning out my window. You asked me not to, and I
respect that. I realize that I can’t demand your respect when I don’t give
it.” But my honesty seemed to make her
even madder. I was breaking the
unwritten rule that we never openly talk about my pot use like it was no big
deal. Indirect comments and innuendos were okay, welcomed even, but it should
never be spoken about unless accompanied by negative sentiment.
Around this time the
debilitating headaches that I had experienced for a few months in grade nine
came roaring back. The doctors could find no explanation for the nearly chronic
headache and dull, burning aches in my back and arms. After almost a year and
several misdiagnoses later, they found that the small curve in my spine wasn’t
causing my pain but rather an incurable chronic pain syndrome. This came after
I had already used up all of the insurance money allotted to physiotherapy, something
Mom delighted in reminding me of every single day. She acted like I was going
on weekly shopping sprees like her rather than trying to manage a
seven-month-strong headache.
Fights with Mom got
especially heated, and I knew once the blood was pounding in my eyeballs and
blurring out the edges of my vision that I needed to get space. A side effect
of the constant overload of pain-related information going to my brain, I get
overwhelmed very easily. I’d try to explain it to her but these episodes are
difficult to explain to the most understanding of people, like a bad dream you
can only remember the emotions of. It didn’t matter that she herself was on
medication for chronic pain. I was just a big faker making excuses.
“I need … space. Just
leave me alone for a little bit. Okay? I just need to breathe,” I would say,
exasperated. The blood in my head was hot, burning my eyes but not my cool
muscles, clenched so tightly no fresh blood could get in. “Mom! Fuck, just
let’s just take a time out! I. Can’t. Think!”
I completely lost respect for her when she started
the habit of blocking the doorway, boxing me into a fight. Stretching her five
foot four frame to fill the doorway, her eyes filled with hatred. I felt rage
boiling in the pit of my stomach, wondering what was going through her head. It
was everything I could do in those moments not to haul off and punch her square
in the face. Mom needed to see me explode, to hear me scream ‘fuck’ in
frustration and pull my hair; maybe sweep my arm across my dresser to put
something between us because when I blew up, she ‘won.’ When she blew up, it
was my fault for provoking her, and again she was victor over my immaturity. Countless
times I tried to make her understand that all I wanted was to cool off before
coming back to the subject when we were both more level headed. It became
painfully clear to me that she was regressing as I progressed along the path to
growing up. She didn’t deserve the respect given to adults when she was acting
like a pubescent girl.
“I’m NOT FUCKING SMOKING
WEED IN YOUR HOUSE!” I screeched a few months after the first accusation,
hysterical and near to passing out. “Pot has a different smell when it’s burnt
than sitting in the bag, and YOU KNOW THAT! YOU USED TO SMOKE IT! I AM NOT
SMOKING IN YOUR FUCKING HOUSE! You asked me not to, so I’m not! Why can’t you
UNDERSTAND that I’m a person, learning and growing up! You want me to respect
your rules, and I AM! FUCK!” We were in the open living room, and I was able to
shove past her star-shaped form to find a safe place to calm down. She grabbed
at my arm, spinning me around. I growled, ripping my arm away so forcefully
something in my shoulder slid loudly out of place. I shoved her backwards, away
from me. Knowing I hadn’t gotten the point through I came whirling back a few
seconds later. “You see the fucking ashtray. You know EXACTLY where Erika and I
smoke! Smell my room! It doesn’t smell like smoke or burnt pot. If it smells
like weed, like fresh, unburned bud, it’s because the bag isn’t sealed
properly. ”
Despite the freedom from
homeschool and my disposable income, I had a hard time adjusting to my new
life. I think it was because I knew I had outgrown a very brief stage in the
process of self-discovery, and I would never be able to go back in time. I
thought about how much of my childhood I had been made to feel bad, worthless
and loved conditionally. I was drowning in a sea of every imaginable pain, and
my muscles ached from the fight. Eight months clean from hard drugs, I had to
get a prescription for synthetic opiate painkillers to manage the chronic back
pain. They were great for relieving the pain that four or more extra-strength
Advil couldn’t, but they are highly addictive. It didn’t take long before I was
popping them like candy to avoid confrontations with Mom, on top of smoking
upwards of fifty dollars of pot a week.
I concocted an ambitious
plan to move out, though it wasn’t really a plan as much as a rebellious dream.
There was no way I could afford an apartment with multiple roommates on minimum
wage, and if I could I’d still need to eat, buy medication and graduate. I was
not lovin’ the burger and fry chain where I worked and there was no way in hell
I would risk having to work there for the rest of my life in order to move out.
Sure, the guys that used fake accents in the drive-through spiced it up, and it
was nice to be within walking distance of work. But a job as a dishwasher in a
pub had a certain mature appeal, and
it offered something fast food didn’t: tips! I would be challenged so that I
was unable to come to work stoned out of my tree, and still do a better job
than half of the people there. As scared as I was of putting myself out there,
it was the next step in the search and rescue mission for my confidence, and a
step further away from Mom. I started June 26th.
Being the stand-up guy
that he is, David helped me to get through feeling like I was losing my mind
during the worst of the withdrawals and we became best friends again. Over the
year of recovery, I worked my way back into Isabella’s heart, and was soon a
member of the family again. She knew what my mom was like after years of
watching David put me back together after a blow-out, and was happy to help me
escape Mom’s elaborate fantasy world. It wasn’t the first time I was ‘coming home’
from my house, since Mom had needed breaks from parenting me, and never
Fredrick, a few times since the divorce. It just happened to work out that
their apartment was two streets down from The Laughing Trout. After I found out
I got the job, I contacted Isabella, David’s mother, about staying at their
small townhouse for the summer. I would pay rent, buy my own food and pitch in
around the house, I promised. How bowling with bumpers is still bowling, the
summer was to be practice for moving out.
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