The One Where I Get High

Picture yourself as a kid, and you’ve experienced a really great weekend, like a family reunion, or something? All your cousins were there, everyone running around, laughing, and eating food off the grill. Maybe you were the family that hosted it that year, and finally the time comes for everyone to pack into their cars and drive back to their respective homes. Maybe it’s only a short drive away, but the last car pulls out of the drive and you get a feeling like a gut punch. You don’t understand the waves of emotion rolling over your tiny mind. You were just in heaven not three hours ago! Is it melancholy? Is it loneliness? Is it the first realization that all good things must come to an end? Maybe you cry, hug your mom, and wonder when the feeling of sadness will go away (give it 30 minutes and a VHS tape). You were surrounded not too long ago, and now the dust is settling and it’s just you and your immediate family again. Everything is quiet and you are left. You. 

I now identify this as a lingering sense of yearning. For me, it usually occurs after a high point, like a great night out with friends or a really kickass performance. You feel like you could walk on air the next morning, the sky bluer than before, thanking the buildings and trees for existing as you pass them, usually blaring something on the pop station, and you don’t give a hoot because I can play Kelly Clarkson if I want! Things are promising, life is splendorous, you are grateful, and then you hit a braking point and feel, well? Sad. 

I just found myself feeling these sensations this evening as I returned from a night out, where I reconnected with friends and felt joy, connectedness, and real rooted into my adult personage. Last night, a group of us found ourselves on the rooftop of an apartment building that had fire pits and a glass fence separating a body from the open air. We were a sea of green painted by the orange orb in the sky, and the “here and now”-ness was blazing in my heart and core. There’s such peace in perspective, and being on the top of a building certainly aids in that.

Tonight I drove around the former roads of my childhood bus route, stopped for Indian food, and I sat in silence, letting the melancholy wash over me. And I simply observed it. Trying to find the tip of the unraveling thread in order to snap it off before it took over. I figured out what the yearning was. It’s yearning for the past. Or, rather, the past yearning for me. Holidays often bring this out. Yes, St. Patrick’s Day is a widespread holiday.

The striking ombre blue skies, the streets that since have filled the back of my eyes while dreaming, instead of seeing them from the front. The house where we young lassies choreographed to N*SYNC and Britney, b**ch (screw, censorship (-;). The bridge I sat under at age 14 with a boy I was so desperately hung up on. The tree I smoked weed under at 16, thinking it was a fancy rolled cigarette (oh, yes, you heard that correctly. A crush was there.) I even observed memories of a past St. Patty’s Days, in the days where I frequented bars more often than the gym, brushing hands with a friend who would continually haunt me with the memory of his eyes. (hmm...I sense a theme here...) 

Walking into the past every so often is an indulgence that can be healthy in doses. It allows you to look down the mountain and see just how far you’ve come. I want you, right now, to say to yourself, “Look How Far I’ve Come.” I’m not kidding. I'll wait...

Now, take a moment to observe three ways you’ve come farther in the past 5-10 years. I don’t give a sh*t if you had to struggle through it, that makes it even more impressive. (wow, I've got a foul mouth tonight.) I’ll go first:

• Calmer driver (DC traffic is no joke, folks)
• More realistic about deadlines
• Don’t need to wear makeup in public to feel stunning

You have to shed the past to bravely walk forward into the light of potential. The past yearns for you, but you’re learning how to stay in your lane, respect the memories and build newer and healthier ones. Old ways will resurface, because growth is a “one step forward, two steps back” kind of deal, but you feel it and you take its hands off you and start your feet a'movin' again. So, melancholy, thanks for stopping by and I’ll see ya another day. I’ve got work to do.

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