Desired Distraction

Barbara Kruger

October 13, 2010

Terrible news has a way of creeping up on you. When I called to catch up with a friend she had news and not the kind I was expecting. Our friend is a heroin addict. He is 20.

My heart sunk deep into my chest; the pain he must have felt to turn to something like heroin, I can empathize. What has me so shaken is quite simple and scares me more than anything. This can happen to anyone and no one saw it coming.

There is a pain so deep you’d do anything to end. Lying on the ground, sobbing, you barely make a sound. You want to feel safe; you want it all to just be okay. Helplessness washes over you, making you feel weak and alone, which in turn makes you feel scared.

Worse than the pain is the inability to end it, make it stop. Progressively getting worse, you get to a point where you feel crippled by life, as life itself causes the pain.

So many nights and days were spent dealing with pain. So many pills popped, joints smoked and knives lacerating through layers of flesh in hopes of finding a distraction. It’s not that I ever wanted to die; I was just too tired to keep living.

I first fell in love with sex when I realized it was the only time I wasn’t in pain. Closing my eyes and letting waves of pleasure rush over me, sex was and still is like meditation. In that moment everything bad falls to the side, nothing matters except the physical pleasure.

For me sex is an escape. It requires no thought and has no meaning when it’s done and over. People seem to think there is deeper meaning to the pleasure derived through sex; as a society we are consumed with finding deeper meanings and refuse to just let things be.

No longer in pain, I still see sex as just that, sex. The world is constantly shown in a picture perfect way, a set of ideals that my life is unable to live up to. The ideals others push onto society; inadequacy seeping through and everyday trying to keep up with what ‘they’ say is right.

We live in a world that promotes compliance, not questions. Ignorance really is bliss, but I was never one to be ignorant. Once you open yourself up to understanding, you can never go back.

Sex is still an escape and distraction from the world. That pain that overwhelmed me on so many occasions is gone. I no longer worry about fitting the cookie-cutter mold that is our society’s expectations. I can only hope my friend can find strength to look beyond what people tell us to see and figure out what everything means for him.   
 

Reality Check

October 6, 2010

Everyone wants to know, ‘Who is the real Chloe?’ Sit back and listen because I am about to tell you.

There is nothing more real than having your crush die of a heart attack a few months after cheating on your boyfriend with him, while you are still in high school. There is nothing more real than losing your role model in a car accident and having two friends murdered by the time you are half way through your first year of university. There is nothing more real than your family losing their fortune and being told, ‘you should have had more.’

There is nothing more real, than real life.

I never understood why I had to go through so many traumatizing things. I don’t believe that everything happens for a reason. I do know that everything in my past has made me exactly who I am at this moment, and as much as it nearly killed me to get here, I am happy with the person I have become.

We sat on the black leather stools at the bar. The Editor was high, the drugs racing through his veins.  My hands were shaking as I attempted a sip of vodka. I had never seen him like this; he was stumbling, stuttering and slurring coming down off a heroin high.

He looked at me and I finally asked the question we both knew was coming, “Why didn’t you tell me?”

Looking downward he shrugged, for the first time since we’d met he seemed at a loss for words. “I didn’t want you to be mad.” I was in shock. Mad!? Was he serious? How on earth do you get mad at someone for having an addiction? I kissed his lips, feeling his hands tighten around my waist. We stood at the bar, arms around each other. The room was full of the usual Monday night bar crowd but it felt like it was just the two of us there.

It broke my heart to hear his response. Why are people so consumed with others judging their actions? There was obviously something he could not cope with if he turned to drugs in such a way. We stood with our bodies pressed together and I knew it would be the last time I saw him. All I could do was be there for him, but first he needed to be there for himself.