by mcdavis3
“Marcus now works as a pizza delivery driver.” I laugh to take the edge off the judgmental bluntness.
I don’t know Marcus well enough to know if he’s happy. I know he’s self-conscious about his career. He does a great job of selling it positively when he tells you his job, he says it with confidence and his head held high, looks you right in the eyes.
“I’m delivering pizzas.”
When he’d told me I’d said something supportive, “Hey, I heard you guys get really good tips. I wouldn’t mind driving around all day.”
“I know man,” he’d replied, “I get the fattest tips some nights, plus I just smoke hella and just cruise.” It’s one thing to be prideful in your work, but it takes a special ego to get hella cocky with it when you deliver pizzas. Worst of all he still thinks I think he’s cool.
I would bet that when Marcus is at his lowest he wishes he could start over and party less, do something more productive for his future. It’s possible he’s much more at peace with his allotment in life than me. Maybe he’s convinced himself that he never had a chance in school anyways on behalf of his A.D.D. That would be a comforting thought.
“Stop giving them such a hard time Marco” Brandon finally chimes in. “We did everything wrong and look, we turned out alright.”
I glare at Brandon, he couldn’t be more wrong. Brandon didn’t turn out OK. Well he is and he isn’t. He’s got some special qualities, he’s a body builder, smart, funny, genuinely loves his family more than anything in the world. But he has some serious issues too. He can be lazy, like escaping life by watching movies and playing video games for whole months lazy. He’s so self-conscious about his career outlooks and the gap in his teeth that he hasn’t had a girlfriend in years.
Not all of it’s his fault. His dad is one of the worst dads you could ever have. A drunk that likes to verbally abuse the crap out of people. Brandon’s Dad really gets off telling his son what a fuck up he is and constantly criticizing him. A few times Brandon’s said “no more” and stopped talking to him. He’s made it years before. But his dad always comes apologizing and begging for Brandon back.
Not that Brandon didn’t have a lot of opportunities many people don’t get. And he messed a lot of them up. He just has this ability to zone out from life, getting completely lost in a movie, a game or just sleeping. I can totally relate. Something like, before any of the drugs, we were already masters at tuning stuff out, checking out from the world.
And me? I’m definitely not OK. It’s not as obvious as you might think, but if Brandon could only see me on the inside. I don’t talk about my little journey with mental illness the last 7 years. I wish I could, I try with my family, but unless you’ve had it you can’t understand.
But I can’t say any of this to Brandon, so I say the only thing I can, “What about Marcus, Brandon? What about Kace? Steven? Carol? Are they doing fine?” I could have gone on and on… Tim, Duncan, John, Victor, Pacey, Chris, Mark, Janae, Isa, Eric, Jay, Mia, Josh, Isa, Jake, Daniel, Emily, Riley, Simon, John, Brendan, Nate, Rachel, Eric, Chris, Greg, Chelsea, Mike, Jeff, Jake, Ricky, Ivar, Eamon, Gabe, Nick, Bradley, Ben, Daniel, Eric, Chris, Seth, Seth, Danny, Kyu, Justyn, Josh, Andrew, Aaron, David…
Brandon must know, he knows.
On our way home we stop at the local grocery store, while Brandon and Michael go in I wait with Luke in the car. I’m parked right in front of a group of fifteen teenagers hovering around three or four cars.
“That’s him,” Luke says, ducking a little lower in the backseat.
“Who? The guy that sold you crayons as e?”
“Ya, the short blonde one.”
The kid’s maybe 5’3, a lil’ guy. He has impressive energy though, he never stands in one place more than two seconds. Jumping in and out of his friends cars, bouncing around the group.
“He looks like a real cocky mofo,” I tell Luke. I try to think of a comparison for him to someone from my high school but I surprisingly can’t. He’s unique. You can see that the other 15 kids look up to him, he’s one of their leaders. It’s a rag tag group of rave beads, neck bandanas, multi-positioned hats, sagging jeans, and acne. Their group reminds me of the grimy, classless druggies from our high school. The kids that did 20 e pills in one week. The kids that never had a chance, ever. Watching them in the parking lot I can see their future as if it’d already happened. It’s so clear. In my head I start putting together another line for my speech. Being successful these days isn’t being 1 in 500. Who gives a shit about 1 in 5,000 even. There’s 7 billion people in the world. Life is about being 1 in 100,000, at the very least.
41. Negative Thoughts.
The worst feeling in the world is being forgotten by someone you can’t forget.
We can’t really communicate. All we can do is busily go through the list of things popping into our heads and pretend to listen. Eventually it all boils down to “Look at me. Look at me.”
I spent the first half of my life wishing I had hair all over my body and the second half hating it.
We imagine ourselves through camera angles now.
This Oakley thing used to be fun, one of the quirks I loved about myself. I let it go on harmlessly for too long and it grew into something pathetic and crazy. I have Great Gatsby syndrome, I don’t know how to let it go, he gets killed at the end. Writing a book about it was not the best choice.
I’ve seen things so perfect they can never be repeated, copied. Picturesque images of Drake riding the beat in his brand new top-floor, glass-walled Miami condo. His crew posed impromptu around him, some off in the background gazing down on their city like they run it.
What the f are you if you don’t have an Instagram full of amazing pictures? A white linen fruit breakfast overlooking the pyramids on a perfect day. Wading out into the sunset on a secluded gorgeous beach in Thailand. Spontaneously caught dancing with your eyes closed at a savvy nightclub in Belarus with a tight skinned stranger in a backless dress bent over in front of you.
I’ve seen SO many pictures of strangers.
A whole life lived to have people look at me and think, “Wow, he’s so much better than me.”
I try to listen to swag pop without getting upset. It’s just music. Creative, genius music. I try to imagine that the artist is a surrogate for my own self-esteem, to pump me up. That’s what everyone else seems to be able to do. I can’t go to a gym, sports game, club or party without some superstar reminding me how much better they are than me. The songs talk about having freaky ass sex with thick ass girls with the best brains who give the best brain. Fucking two, three at a time. How they fuck them so hard they damage their internal organs. How they’re friends with everyone in their city and how they wish they could blow all their money just so they could make it from the bottom all over again. How you’re a hater who ain’t doing it right ‘cause money talk and you’ll never be on their g4 level. How your girl’s their groupie. How you’re a lame because you actually catch feelings for these hoes.
Older people will never understand. They can’t even understand the lyrics. You have to have grown up with it your whole life.
And who am I to complain? These guys are cultural icons, gods among billions. It’s just a party, there are much worst things in this world than casual sex. I like having my shirt off, I would love to be in a music video, I’m a slut. Why am I such a grumpy hater?
It’s been the same thought process for ten years. I’m drawn in like a jealous junky and then hate myself for envying them and then debate whether selling power, drugs and sex is wrong. Trying to draw a murky line between supporting the artist and enabling the addict. Between artifacts and art.
I always conclude that swag pop’s basically musical crack, pleasurable at first but then terrible for your soul. Then I stay up until 4 in the morning reading about the 17 year old that made the hit beat for Rozay’s new single.
They should do a triple blind, quadruple control study where they teach children about Jesus and Ghandi and Martin
Luther King while at the same time raising them with music videos. Superstars are our lead pipes, well definitely the pollution and bad food, but after that.
Panic is spending your entire life thinking you’re special and better and then realizing one day in the face of 7 billion people that you’re not all that special or better. A whole life wasted watching too many hero’s journeys, dreaming too big.
“I try to write about everything that happens in a moment…all our feelings…the history of it…everything in the world. Everything all mixed up… No matter what you start with it ends up being so much less.’[28]
[28]The Hours
My greatest gift is one that’s all too common these days. Being critical. Give me a few minutes and I can cleverly put down anyone. If you look long enough were all ugly, we all have weird bumps on our heads, weird things on our skin, ears. You can always find something if you look long enough. Human beings are all hideous in the right light.
When I see a girl I want to ask out, or a guy I want to be friends with, instead of talking to them, I critique something about them until I feel satisfied enough to not expend the energy. I haven’t made a new friend in years.
These days I’m mainly critical of myself.
It’s amazing how alone you can get in a city of 3 million people.
I’m the fakest revolutionary ever. I have lots of moments where I’d sell my soul for some portable status symbol. To sit VIP in the swankiest clubs, to hang out with go-getta girls that are trying their hardest to impress you. Their unique smells, their sweat.
Give me any semblance of power, any high ground to look down from, and I’d fail every test. I’d be as cocky as any of them. I’d run my mouth and try and control my friends, my family. I’d be a dick to all the dicks. All my neurotic whims would slowly slip out.
What’s the point of a thought if it’s not hilarious and brilliant? That’s what being smart is, thinking through a bunch of shitty thoughts as fast possible. Constantly, frantically monitoring your thoughts for the next great idea. Being a thought factory. How many hours of daydreaming equals a great line of poetry?
Most of my thoughts don’t even make enough sense to be bad. I’ve squandered my brilliant spark. Killed too many braincells. Doomed to hyper-vigilantly comb through a lifetime of unexceptional things to say.
I’m not even a good writer, my metaphors and similes suck. It’s all been said before and no one reads anymore anyways. And I’m lazy
I can’t stand 21st cenutury conversations. “I’ve been watching… Have you seen…? We’ve been watching… I heard the funniest joke in… You gotta wach…”
I spend 10 hours a day in front of a screen. So does everyone. We’re the first to live most of our lives in front of a screen.
In the 21st century all the songs remind you of other songs because they all use the same synthesizer noises from the same music programs. Even the old songs because of all the samples. In the 21st century, faces aren’t divinely unique anymore, everyone reminds you of 5 other people. There’s such an oversaturation of everything it’s all just one big overwhelming mess. There’s so much information that the best you should hope for is to find a niche running a blog that reviews dog toys or self-published books. We haven’t adapted yet, we have to change all our plans and dreams, but I don’t know how yet.
And I know years of being on the “medication,” the future drugs, just made me worst. They say the medications somehow increase neuron production in the brain, increasing message delivery. They used to say that they somehow balanced your neurotransmitters, but now it’s the other thing. What if I now have too many neurotransmitters after all these years? What if they’ve permanently sped up my thoughts? Who knows? There’s something wrong in my subcallosal cingulate. I’ve just been thinking too fast lately… For how long? Who knows... I can’t remember. Maybe for years. They just pop in and out of my mind too fast, racing, this is what it’s like to live in the information age. I’m mad, I’m absolutely going mad. It’s only a matter of time now.
This book’s no different than the gangster rappers. I’m selling fourteen year olds huffing gravity hits and giving each other oral sex. And I wish I could tell you even more. I wish I could write a story about 14 year old gangbangers in chiraq using snapchat.
There comes a point when you’ve been down for so long there’s no getting back to the top. Years spent looking at a screen. And how many panic attacks? 3000? Ten is too many. And how many social faux pas? Humiliatingly rejected by at least 50 girls. How many times have I come off as desperate and creepy? 80 jobs. Waiting for texts, emails and calls that will never come.
22 years old having your dad drive you to an emergency room at 2 in the morning while you’re laughing out the window about how you’re going crazy because you’re only smart enough to memorize other people’s jokes. So frozen with fear you can’t even pray. Asking to be put into a psych ward.
Once you’ve been to the abyss a few times. That does something to you. There’s no getting your top of the world swagger back after that. No more energy to engage bad story tellers and smile and nod and make their days. Say hi to strangers.
Ruminate on negative thoughts like these long enough and eventually you might find yourself in a place where you can’t stop thinking about how unsettling first person vision is. You’ll shudder and feel nauseous thinking about how you’re just a walking panorama with limbs sticking out: unsupported, ungrounded.
Every couple of seconds an alarm of self-awareness will go off in your head reminding you that you ruined your brain and your life and everything’s wrong. You’ll start to hate all your meaningless, repetitive, sporadic, dull thoughts: Washing my hands for the 100,000th time is so fucking fun. What a retarded thing to say. Out of everything there is to possibly say you said that? I’ve heard so many jokes they don’t mean anything anymore, I have a joke tolerance. Why I’m I so critical and negative? What’s wrong with me? Why can’t you be happy for other people? How much of life is forgetting and double-checking and remembering and skinny arm poses? Oh god I’m chronically sick. I’m weak. Life’s meaningless.
The roller coaster ride of obscure sensations and thoughts in your head will make you feel really weird and terrified. In the same breathe you’ll be utterly too smart and too stupid. Terrified of stopping at cross walks, driving to the grocery store, being along in bed. Certain that the next unbearably mundane moment you’re trapped alone with your delirious thoughts will be your last. Which one will be the one that completely eats you up? Will it be imagining all the silent disses that people have thought about you? It’s only a matter of time.
What’s wrong with you will become that you spend all your time trying to figure out what’s wrong with you. You’ll spend months, years, chewing over a brief unexpected window of euphoria in the midst of all the anxiety. What drug you were on, what dose. Holding out hope to try and piece that moment back together. Just saying the words “mental illness” or conceptualizing the idea will overwhelm you with an “I can’t believe this is happening to me” moment. All your thoughts will be followed by, life’s weird, this sucks. You’ll hit a last second shot in a basketball tournament and think, I can’t be happy, I’m sick.
You’ll begin to hate thinking. You’ll orgasm and think, that’s it? That’s the best life has to offer? Waking up will become a living nightmare.
Just hearing celebrities names will make your arm clench until it shakes. You’ll feel the fear of worrying about the last conception you’ll have before your consciousness fades away.
I titled a poem I never wrote amidst an episode of psychic pain. I reached down from my bed and scribbled on a receipt lying on the ground. “Death is the best anti-depressant.”
42. Positive Thoughts
So, life didn’t turn out anything like you expected it to you. You didn’t live up to all those promises you made to yourself when you were eight. You’ve failed at your life’s greatest ambition and all that’s left is malaise and mediocrit
y. Now what?
Feeling that vulnerable strength is all I ever have left. The ferociousness of watching your mom fight as hard as anyone has ever fought for 15 years. Having a grandmother who raised her six orphaned siblings during the depression. All I can ever do is grasp out for straws faster than ever before.
It all starts with a breath, a deep breath. In 1, 2, 3, 4. Hold 1, 2, 3, 4. Out 1, 2, 3, 4. Relax 1, 2, 3, 4. You’ve never really breathed until you’ve mindfully focused on the sensations of a breathe. The air filling and leaving your lungs. The rising and falling of your stomach. The air against your lips.
One night, my Jr year of college, in the midst of an unbearable episode of mental pain, I went to the gym and worked out until I couldn’t think anymore, until I couldn’t possibly feel anything besides brain-dead fatigue. And it helped, so I kept doing it.
A year after that, after reading another article about how a nutritious diet heals your brain, I decided to commit to eating a great diet. Might as well. I went to the grocery store and bought boxes of vegetables and super fruits: kale, spinach, avocados, tomatoes, blue berries, red peppers. I started eating kale and spinach straight out of the bag, for months. I f-ing HATE kale! But I started forcing it down my mouth every day. I started eating breakfast every morning and making healthy meals like salmon, eggs, grass-fed beef. I began adding a lot of healthy fats to my diet, like nuts, avocados and all kinds of oils. The brain is 70% fat. This all helped, so I kept at it, evolving my system. I eventually began cooking my vegetables in oil and butter with turmeric, it’s much tastier and more powerful.