Where is my mind?

Thank heaven for ex-crack smoker's little helper.

I was loitering at the local mall the other day, gawking at window displays, wondering why people have quite so many babies, and basking in the grim parade of humanity.

I don’t recommend it.

A shopping mall is doom scrolling on foot. Had they been playing Christmas music, I'm not convinced my sobriety would have held.

Funny thing is, I was there because I figured getting out of the house would actually lift my spirits. It was snowing in the dirtiest, most annoying way possible. On days like that, when the world seems a little more monochrome than usual, it’s often a good idea to walk out the front door — in case something wonderful and unexpected should happen out there.

Just not the godforsaken mall, which was clearly invented by the pharmaceutical industry to sell antidepressants.

But I don’t hold that against them. In fact, these days I’m feeling downright pharma-positive.

It makes me wonder what might have been if I had found those little white pills earlier in life. Honestly, that’s on me. For most of my life I’ve been rabidly anti-anti-depressant.

As I told a friend once, “I don’t want to live in a world where I have to take drugs to deal with living in it.”

“Well, too bad,” she replied, while pounding a can of cannabis juice.

The thing is, I’ve always felt soul-sadness to be instrumental — integral — to my identity. If I lop off the blue bits, what other colors will disappear? My self-portrait was painted with just the right hues of blues and assorted miseries. Not wishing to take any chances, I JUST CONTINUED TO SMOKE CRACK.

Ahh, there’s the rub. For all my hand-wringing about messing with brain chemistry, I didn’t hesitate to reach for the most powerful street-grade medication on Earth.

Did it make this world any more habitable? Nah. It just gave me one very sad reason to abide. I went through life like a crack-seeking missile.

And how did that daily regimen impact my ‘brain chemistry’? Ask my partner and my dog and everyone else who tried their best to keep loving me — and failing in devastatingly slow motion. I wasn’t exactly the toast of the company picnic either.

I also spent most evenings planning my own elaborate, yet tasteful, funeral.

Of course, my friend was right. This is a world that requires at least a little mitigation in order for it to be liveable — whether that’s magic mushrooms, Real Housewives, or buying shit off Temu. Smoking crack is a hell of a lot of mitigation.

And if you can ride this planet bareback — without any of those little helpers — I’m not sure if I want to know you, anyway.

So, in the end, what ended up leavening my head? A doctor’s prescription.

Don't get me wrong. A pill didn't singlehandedly save my sobriety. Recovery is a thousand rays of light in perfect convergence on one pitiful soul. A single ray happened to be medication, which is administered alongside love, support, meetings, exercise, books, meditation— well, you get the idea.

In the early days, especially, those little pills helped a painfully sensitive ex-junkie weather the countless frictions that grind against us all.

Then I went to the mall and faced humanity in all its late-capitalist, double-strollered, macchiato-grasping glory.

Was one little pill supposed to hold back that tide of despair? Well, maybe, when combined with a trip to one of my favorite retail operations. The grocery store.

Being around so much food always makes me happy. Every aisle positively stinks of hope. Ice cream was on sale. Waffles too.

And on the store speaker… is that… I wanna dance with somebod—It is! Whitney Houston! It all conspired to put a spring in my step.

The best part? By the time I got home, the ice cream had melted just right. And Flavor of Love was on TV. Exactly the right drugs. Exactly the right time.