Trust 3

Boyfriend

NYE 2019. Or is it 18? Which year do we say? The present year or the coming year? I hate when twitter hashtags become your encyclopedia. None of that matters now. I'm in my room crying for the first time in years. Balling. Big baby bitch tears. I crafted a letter to my first boyfriend. We weren't fucking. We aren't even gay. He was just my boyfriend. He would take me around town and country and expose me to things I'd never seen before. I was always with him. He loved me and I loved him. He was my boyfriend. 

I hated him. He made me do things I didn't want to do. Comedy being one of them. I was there when he started his comedy career. Not like when he first told a joke and people around him laughed but I was there the first time he went on stage. He killed. I think. Or who knows. He took me to so many comedy clubs it was hard to count. And club after bar after hall he would fight and be irrational and be charming and hilarious, honest, outgoing and reckless, and unwavering in his confidence. 

He wouldn't stop there. It wasn't satisfactory that he would succeed, he needed me to as well. Skits and writing and sets I would perform, all at the expressed desire of my boyfriend. Seeing what he saw in me he wasn't willing to let that lie dormant. In each adventure I had a story with a lesson TBD but an idea of what I wanted and didn't. Who knew coming out of your shell would reap so many benefits? It wasn't enough though. He would push me verbally and tease me. Wrestle with me. Fight with me. I was always the one being acted upon and reacting. I had no offensive skills. Not until the day I broke. 

We were on the way back to his place with him, his girlfriend and some other persons unknown and, as usual, he was teasing me. I had enough. Watching him for years I saw him attack without warning, a trait I really admired, a trait that had to be bred from just reacting on pure instinct. I reacted with all that I had experienced, all that I had learned from him. 

I made a joke about him. A dark roast. It was true and funny but seemingly mean-spirited. Before I could I think I had another one in queue and it came out as quick as its conception. And another one. It seemed like forever but was probably only twenty seconds. He stopped. I could tell he was stunned. His instinct. He was going to fight me. "Hahahaha." He laughed. Everyone laughed. I laughed. We laughed the whole way home and for years to come after that. He may not remember that moment but that was a day I graduated.

"I wanna end this year telling you that I hate you." The first submission of my ex-boyfriend's 2019 NYE love text thread in the books. It goes on. 

I hate you for being pushy for being strong when unnecessary. For being so critical. For being loud and in my face. Argh. But in that pressure something happened. I found pieces of myself that I didn't know. Something broke in me that made me realize I could break all things just to see how they worked. You brought me out of my shell and that's because we are so different. I don't think I've ever properly told you I hate very much but that's why I love you.

I cried for about twenty minutes with "Ghost Town" by Kanye West on repeat. I needed him to know how I felt about all those times and what they meant to me. I went two days with no reply, seeing his posts on the internet and wondering what he thought before I asked his wife if his phone was off. His phone was off. Nigger...

The doors I left open were just enough for the firefighters and then soon paramedics to meet me in my new location since we last met. The first one through the door was the loudest. "BLAH BLAH BLAH BUDDY?!" If I was in any position to die due to stress that was my moment. The rest shuffled in and I answered as many questions as I could while they checked my vitals. The level of consistency from our previous encounter keeps me calm. 

"So what happened," one asked, I believe. I couldn't tell. My neighbor was in the doorway. The questions so far were accusatory. Like they were trying to find the common denominator and get to the heart of the matter. Sounds vaguely familiar...

I go on to explain how I got into this predicament. But how did I end up here?

Right before Kansas and Pre-Obama, end of summer 2008. My boyfriend has me on another adventure. We're filming a movie about......? I meet one of my dearest friends in the world for the first time that night. She lives there. The filming is fun, fast, loose and tight on time. We have one day. Perfect for C-Doc's MacGyver creativity and eye for the perfect shots. We take a break and go outside. They're all in comedy so of course they're smoking. 

"You want some," or some variation of the weed smoking ritual (the positioning of the bowl or blunt nearest to you with an inquisitive look as they blow out smoke being one) was expressed towards me as an offering. 

"Okay." I knew I was gonna hate it. It had been some time since I last smoked. Every year I try it at least once to see if I still hate it. My year end review was coming. I took a puff. They passed it around and I'm still outside talking to my friend or someone. I didn't care. I was having the time of my life and...

"Hey. Wait. I'm not super tired or floored.Why is that?"

"Yeah," somebody said. "This is a sativa."

Sativa. That stuck with me for ten years. Every one of those years I searched at least once with hopes of finding the illusive sativa brand that person mentioned. If I was going to smoke weed I was going to enjoy it. This time last year I'm doing work and some degenerate asked me if I wanted to take a hit of their pen. Strangely enough the person whose trust I violated today let me take a hit of their CBD contraption weeks before. The trust built in the technology stemmed from there. 

Normally I would deny it but I didn't remember my yearly review and I asked what kind it was. "It's a hybrid," he said. Not the news I wanted to hear but I gave it a try. I was cool. I wasn't floored. I was actually enjoying this. That's when it started. 

A year later the loudest voice in medicine is talking to me in my living room. Another professional takes the machine off of my finger. "You're fine." Another one says "You're just stoned as hell. You got you some Doritos?" They all start to laugh. I remembered the last time this happened. I trusted them and I lived. I still had questions though.

"Yeah but do any of you have anxiety?" Not sure if anxiety is the answer. I looked up my symptoms during the first experiment two days prior but comparing internet notes to real medical professionals and their personal testimony is entirely different. Insert "You are already dead" WebMD meme here. 

"I do," one pipes up. I asked about his first panic attack. He walked me through it. Same symptoms. My neighbor was in the doorway. Middle aged older lady.

"Can you close the door? It's freaking me out right now." They all understood. She understood the most. I wanted her gone. Then she spoke up. 

"Okay but I want you to know that I work in the medical field as a (insert life saving title here) and if you need any help I'm right next door." I couldn't believe it. I sat there with all of these people caring about me who didn't care about me outside of this context but who would do anything I asked if it helped and was in the bounds of their desires at that time and their duties. Even the neighbor I tried to kick out was only there to offer help. I was blown away again. 

"But my Apple Watch says my bpm is..."

"Oh, don't look at that. It's...," and before they could finish I tossed it towards the window and it fell behind a vent. Another story the walls can't tell.

After a few warmhearted goodbyes I had new information. I walked up the stairs with confidence from my experiences and their opinions that I wasn't going to die. Every step I took felt like my last but I knew they were right. 

When I had all the answers, the questions changed. 

My now ex-boyfriend Angelica put that status up today. It's how one should approach truth. Always looking to find the answers and challenge them against new information. That is what stands the test of time. Sure I'll try different strains at different times and under varying conditions and circumstances. In typing this throughout the day I found people who, with full knowledge of my experience and the possible risks, tested what I had and I tested theirs, a mere four hours after the last paramedic vacated my front porch. I felt great. More experiments to come.

I need to know what I can trust. I need to know what is truth. Today I found it out in the context of my body, it's limits and possible side effects. I woke up under the assumption that I had all the answers and was smacked awake with different questions twice. Back to the drawing board. 

I saw the person whose trust I violated later in the evening. It was a coincidence as we rarely run into each other and on the same day I learned that I hurt them they appeared. I looked over, they looked over and their face changed when they recognized me. 

Pressure gripped my chest above my heart earlier that day, my heart raced into gears it wasn't prepared to accommodate and my brain panicked at the idea that it could be taking in the last images of a world it cherished so much. That look, that disappointment and betrayal in their eyes, that felt worse than anything.