Peeling Away The Onion

My response earlier today to an e-mail I received earlier today:

“Yeah, I specifically remember listening to that album (referencing The Cure’s Head On The Door) on a trip I made for a business club that I was in in high school (That was DECA for you kids from VHS). We stayed near Disneyland for this conference. I swear that that was the only cassette tape that I had during that weekend. High school was and still is a mixed bag of emotions. I got along great with my friends during my first two years. We drank and got high all the time. I then graduated into cocaine and meth. I first got clean and sober when I was 15. After I got out of rehab, things really changed. My friends were partying and I just stayed away from them. I had a couple of friends that were in the program so we would hit meetings together. My dad was sober for a couple of years at that time so we would hit weekend AA meetings together. This is a time where I really just needed or more specifically relied on my music to get me through periods of being alone. Looking back on it now, I can see where I went from being a little social to being more withdrawn. It was also a time where I was picked on by one guy and that pretty much lasted until my Senior year of high school when I got my car and just did my thing with one of my buddies. WTF? That is, I think, the most I have opened up and honestly analyzed that particular time in my life. A lot of the people on FB are people that I knew growing up in one way or another. I lived in the same town (Vista, CA) for 16 years. It was a small town of about 35,000, so everyone pretty much knew everyone else.”

I had a realization towards the end of that paragraph that I have never really talked about experiences from high school in depth with anyone but my closest friends (and those that witnessed me being taped to a street sign pole after we got off the bus one day).  I can not say that my experiences throughout high school were horrible and I wanted to kill everyone. There were people that I got along with and knew in high school. I just felt very alone. I did not reach out to anyone but my closest friends.

It is still hard for me to believe that one of my closest friends from high school committed suicide. Dead…gone. This was one person that made life tolerable throughout high school because he could make me laugh.

I love to laugh. I love hearing funny, strange stories about life. I spend my time around people who have a twisted thoughts and that is okay with me. I do not want a cookie-cutter life. I want to laugh, I want you all to entertain me, so make me laugh now people Honestly, I just love it when my friends and I take a normal conversation and just take it where ever it goes. I am not talking about potty humor or stuff like that.

I believe that today and at other points in my life that I have been attracted to these type of people. They have made life bearable. Even in my darkest hours, I know that there are friends to guide me through. I just have to believe in them, as well as myself.