Everything Reminds Me of Them

Everything reminds me of them

Sometimes when I think about my ex, flashes of my old life appear

I knew everything would remind me of her in my city

In the beginning even Advil did

Now it’s more normal stuff I see

We lived together for 2 years and I’m still in the same apartment but this place always felt like home

She said it never did for her

Not that many places did since she was adopted

But this wasn’t one of them

I designed it to be a bachelor pad near the skydeck, pool, and some restaurants

Just in case something happened

To protect myself as usual

Already the wrong intentions

Now when I think of an errand I need to do — I think about her

Then flashes of the girl I lost my virginity to pops up— She Od’ed

Then my first ex — she didn’t die but it felt like it

Then my dad—also is dead

Then my past life in college, post grad, and late twenties appear

How it was so gloriously imperfect

So it’s layers of grief because I never bothered to deal with any of it

From my unborn child

All the way to some things buried so deep some will remain a secret forever

Something seemed to change in me yesterday

Memorial Day

A big shift into my new identity

It’s not flashy

It doesn’t draw eyes

It’s not performative

But I connect well with others now

I am just in a light flow state

With people I see we can chat about whatever

With people I know well we can go deeper

My best friend from college told me about his past wounds this weekend

His ex cheated on him with a dude who was 20 while they were 15-16

The 20 year old took pics and sent them to him

He told a friend and the friend told the whole school

She sat behind him everyday because their lasts names were close

I felt like I had been stabbed

No wonder he is with the girl he is right now

She would never do that because she looks so bad no one would want to do that

She is a terrible person in many ways, he had to call off the wedding twice, one is 5 days away and she just asked when I was getting into town

She’s in denial and he is trying to break up with her

But I get it

He will have to go down memory lane at some point

He’s been pretty much on autopilot for the last decade or so too

So was I in a different way

Chasing highs, chaos, lows even, validation, intense parties, a threesome that hurt my ex so bad, anything to get something new and exciting

There is this concept known as the 3 loves

Not sure if it applies to everyone but it resonates hard with me

The first one is a young ideal one

My ex and I were from the south, I loved her parents

She loved mine I think

I knew I would never marry her 3 weeks in

But emotion seems to trump every time if you are run by it

I was too high to do anything

I didn’t understand how people could do life sober

I didn’t know what the point was

I just wanted to be happy, dumbed down, numbed out

Who would want to feel this shite?

Well turns out you have to one day

Whenever your breaking point is otherwise you continue to do the same stuff forever

The very definition of insanity

I never knew what to write about before this

Now I could write every single day

Usually comes to mind when I’m in the shower in the morning

At first I was like I have to write NOW

Now I can just let things flow and get to my laptop when I need to

There are no stages of grief they come and go

I had a great day yesterday as my system took a break

Today I have a melancholy sadness but I’m happy to be moving into my new self

The self that was always there

I can be alone with my thoughts now

I had an intense craving for nitrous on Sunday because I had a massive headache

Then that led to some emotional stuff that I wrote about and sang away

Every time I write, podcast, talk with someone, connect with myself deeply and others, the load lightens a bit

Before with all of this I would just get super angry and burst into tears especially on nitrous

Anger was my go to emotion though

Upset about anything I could find

It drove me for so long

I wondered how everyone was so dumb

Then I realized we are all retarded in our own ways

Some of the stuff we can help

25-50% is our fault

Sometimes it is 100% our fault

Then you look back and realize 0% of it was your fault

My friends ex doing that

My dad going into the ER

None of it was our fault

How we responded to it was though

I mean we have some crazy stories and things my friends couldn’t believe

People that I had known since I was a baby were watching my stories on FB and IG

To them I was Dan Bilzerian

To me I wasn’t even close and would never be

His life has always sort of mimicked mine

We even stopped smoking weed at the same time

I didn’t want the exact same lifestyle but I knew I could create my own version of it

People would be blown away

I also had been in one of his affiliate programs so some people actually thought I hung around with him or worked for him

I did neither

I also scouted girls for a local agency but made no money

However, they would often know who I was and I wouldn’t have a clue who they were

We had talked on the phone and I hung around the older guys who were photographers with hundred of thousands of followers

I’ll tell you one thing

The followers don’t buy you happiness

Some are rooting for you

Others watch to see when you will fall

The more you have the more you have of both

Right now if this was the only amount of people I could reach

That would be enough for me

Everything seems to be enough for me nowadays

I’m not chasing anymore

I’m building something bigger

Something relatable and real

This style content for example

A close friend group that I barely see but hear from near daily

I’m cutting out the noise

The excess drama

The thunder

The biggest part of the storm seems to have passed

I’m not sure if I’m in the eye of the hurricane or If I’m in the clean up stages

TBH when I started all of this 5 weeks ago it was making landfall at category 4 or 5

2 weeks ago I dissociated so hard when my ex and I were done

It meant everything was done

I had been writing about not wanting the way I felt to end

Then that ended

Every time I feel good I think something bad is going to happen

Yesterday I felt this way and it didn’t

I didn’t brace for impact

I got a nervous feeling in my stomach like well everything is good where is the bad now?

And nothing

Anytime before it happened either that day or the next

I would have thought this was bad today

But it’s not at all

It’s great in some ways

That cycle seems to be duller maybe even broken

Almost typed in years ago thats how long it has felt but also it feels like days

5 weeks

I was pre-grieving before that

Then I was like well shit is over but body hadn’t caught up yet

I had gone on a 2 day bender did coke, hurt my ankle, did nitrous, stopped on my last box and was like I’m just done

Finished them off next day

Then was fed up with everything

I wanted to stop the chaos

I didn’t want more nitrous

My friend had some for the first time in a year this Saturday

Another test

We were playing warzone and I heard the whippets

A different version he was doing but the same

I had been craving them all day

Then the next a big craving

But I never indulged

In the past even 5 weeks ago I would’ve joined him

He’s going through all that shit above and I feel for him

After we discussed the trauma I said ok let’s play a round to ground

He said okay and I immediately heard the whippets

Couldn’t help but laugh

That was me

Next day he finished some off and was hitting the vape

Next day he snorted some ritalin

He never does drugs now except this weekend

This guy and I used to do all the drugs from heroin to smoking tobacco out a bong

We had sober days too

But it was rare

Oftentimes combining a bunch of drugs together

Freshman year he smoked himself into a coma a lot

I never saw someone green out so hard

He hit clifford the big red bong and just fell over

I never knew people could green out so much

He would black out on booze every weekend sometimes twice

One time he came to me and said want to get breakfast?

I said we already went

We had all been drinking all night at the frat and he was shocked he didn’t remember breakfast

I’ve never seen someone black out at 8 AM from a night of drinking

He had put mostly creamer in his coffee

I said do you want coffee with that cream?

I knew he was still fucked up but not blacked out

I see why he went so hard now

The pain was just too much to navigate

It’s also funny as hell in one way because we created so many different memories sober or not

Never met someone so chill like him before

Funny as hell

Now I see that in a lot of people

Those close to me and those far

It’s just so pleasant

The storm has passed

The clean up has started

It’ll take a while to get over myself

Some will always sort of linger but be dulled in a way

Writing helps so much

Creating helps so much

Connection and love helps so much

I’m grateful to be here

I was running from this for so long because it seemed so boring and I’d have to feel all of this

But it is so fun and truly a blessing

I had no idea I would make it this far

Until next time,

-BTSC