Cosgrove Norstadt/Jeff Foote

Intro to THE PARLOR

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Standing on the precipice

I am this close <hold index finger against thumb> to using meth. I am standing on the precipice looking down into the valley below me and I see the strewn wreckage of so many souls who plunged into the crevice of meth use before me. My support system has collapsed and I am alone struggling to make a decision; to use or not to use.

No man, beast or even insanity seems to satiate my desire to use. The power of meth prevails. There are those who rise up out of the darkness and I glimpse their face in agony as they struggle to climb out of the hell of meth use but my heart tells me not to believe what I see, my heart assures me that I will not fail this time. This time I will be able to function normally when I use. I will maintain a normal standard of living.

Meth is eternal. It is always there. Meth was there before I ever had to draw a line in the sand. It is beckoning to me from ads on line; it beckons me to return to that darkened place where I can not see reality. It promises to mask my loneliness, it will cloak my reclusive behavior, and it will make me feel free to be myself again.

Why do I stand on this steep drop and contemplate stepping off? Why do I continue to love meth when it has brought nothing but despair, death and isolation to me? For those of us who don’t care, meth is a constant. It is always there. Meth continues to fool me and make me believe that I have missed out. Meth does not let up on me. It barrages me with false memories of euphoria.

I have been clean for three plus years and you may be wondering to yourself, why don’t I leave it once and for all? Why don’t I turn from the bluff overlooking the souls lost to meth and walk away? I have and I will but I fear I will always be a meth head. I will always remember what it was like to have used and left behind this world of sadness, isolation and private struggle. I will always want to return to Oz rather then stay in Kansas.

I can look over my shoulder and see those behind me not daring to even come close to the precipice. Those that see me think I am crazy. I have to agree that standing so close to the chasm before me is daunting but since I have been there, I am more fearful, only that fear does not compel me to avoid use. As the fear grows in me, so does my desire to use.

I will step back for now. I have no choice. I have to find my inner strength and resolve. I avoided another near miss. I wonder if I will ever be rid of meth or the ravages it has brought to me or will I forever tread on the cliffs of desire and tempt the glass pipe to pull me in and let me float in the clouds again.

I am this close to using meth and I stand on the precipice looking down into the valley below me. I can see remnants of my own wreckage and back away. Slowly I manage to step back. I will not use but that doesn’t make me less of a meth head.

DREAMING IN COLOR

Before I ever turned to Crystal Meth I was naïve. My world was alive and bustling without the use of Tweek. I didn’t use secret codes with my friends to discuss drugs like “chemicals” “X” “T” and “K”. I didn’t know any people who were paranoid about bugs, real ones or mechanical ones. My life was simple. Sleep, Work, Boyfriend, Friends, start again. Simplicity was my life. Funny thing is simple seems boring after tweek.

Using Meth was like going on an adventure to a real jungle, with real tigers with real fear and trepidation. Oh, I have ventured far far from home. I am no longer in the backyard pretending, Candy, the family dog, is a tiger I need to conquer. I am miles away from the tall grass growing at the back of the yard hiding me from wild animals. I am living fear and hunting. Always hunting. Hunting for meth. Hunting for sex. Hunting to endure, just to get through another day. My mother isn’t in earshot anymore, my survival depends on me alone.

This is an exciting life! I am living! It feels more exciting then I imagined it would and I am free! Free, from pressures at work. I meet more people because I am free. My freedom gives me confidence.

And you want me to quit? To stop?

Any city dweller, imagine being plucked out of your metropolis and dropped in a small village of 50 or so…..and those living in a village or town, imagine awakening one day in New York’s Time Square. City or town. This or that. Use or quit. You choose.

I quit. So far…

I haven’t seen a black and white television in years with its strange hues of whites, blacks, greys showing static pictures too bright or too dark but I quit the meth and look out at the world and see only Black and White. I am trapped in isolation. I am unnoticed. Cut off. An entire universe made of spun glass exists beyond the confines of my mind. I have lived in and created beautiful worlds. Yet, I am sitting in this drab humorless world. How can I choose just one world to live in?

I can choose because my life is simple again, sleep, work, boyfriend, friends, start again. I raised the bar on adventure and I will look to travel to other countries or go on a jungle safari to meet an honest to god tiger face to face. Our pal Dorothy came back from the mythical land of OZ full of color and sights unimaginable with nothing. I, too, have returned with nothing from my world of spun glass but I have what Dorothy never had. I speak in a special language with words like “Chemicals”, “X”, “T” and “K”. I am a Tweeker from Tweekerbury! I have traveled through time and space and I see we all end up back here in the black and white world leaving the Technicolor of Meth behind…for awhile.

I see fellow travelers stumble and fall. I could. You could. It is so easily within our grasp. We are like Atlanteans drawn to California who await the “big earthquake” that will pull them back into the ocean and return them to their watery home. I meet fellow travelers who want me to voyage on with them to more worlds of spun glass and my adventurous spirit rises with anticipation until I realize to return to this world of glass is to doom myself. That is why I left; to save myself from the implosion. I averted disaster once and I tempt it again. I shatter the world of spun glass against the walls of my mind and it shatters in splinters of color and light and continues to shatter against itself. I choose the safety of simplicity. I choose each time I miss being high.

IT LURKS IN THE CORNER

From the corner of my eye a glint of light reflects and catches my eye. I turn to see a shirtless man sitting in the sunlight with his back turned to me. I am mesmerized by way his hair catches the light. His hair is closely cropped with trimmers and there is just a bit of stubble on the back of his head but he glows and glistens in the sunlight. His shoulders are tight, rounded and sun drenched. There is a hint of red showing through which by days beginning the following morning will be a dark bronze. I know his beauty before I even gaze upon his face. The shape of his head, the way he holds his body, his neck. A man’s neck. I wanted to see him up close – a rarity. There is beauty everywhere! One is rarely lucky to see a monarch butterfly up close. It flies, it flits and flutters. It teases us and we chase it for a closer look but it bounces and bobs leaving us breathless and with a sigh of exacerbation we give up seeing it up close. As I approach this man, I muster my bravado. I gather my courage. I bound by him confidently so I won’t miss my opportunity to catch this beauty up close. As I pass my treasure he looks up and locks eyes with me. He has the intensity of Medusa! My insides freeze. I try to keep my bravado up but my courage is now gone and my confidence is waning. He doesn’t move. I can approach him and look upon the details of this enigma that is awaiting me and I flush with excitement to see him and with trepidation, I begin to approach unsure of the outcome of such an adventure…

It has been said that there are people who can walk into your life, change it and then walk back out like “nothing happened at all”. I invited tweek into my home. It affected many parts of my life, if not all of them from my BF to cleaning the house. From eating to health. And even after tweek had gone, I can still feel it working its charm elsewhere. Always there. Flirting with me. Tweek is like that lover who knows he is good sex. He KNOWS that you like him. He KNOWS his pull on you. He knows you are in love with him. And what does he like best about all this? He likes to be chased down and had….he won’t come to you!! Just like tweek!

So one day the tweek is gone. Unceremoniously dumped or in my case with ceremony. Your life moves on and you begin to clean away your lovers old shirts left behind the bed. Clues that got lost in a drawer. Your friends begin to ask about your boyfriend/tweek. Where is he? He will be at a party this weekend. Reminders are everywhere!

Perseverance pays off.

Your broken heart begins to mend and you pull it together, putting your life back together.

But tweek sneaks around. It hides in corners at parties. It leaves tell tale signs in bathrooms, clubs, and parks. Tweek repeatedly and endlessly begins to hound you and show you that you aren’t the only one. (But you can be!!) Tweek leaves a trail of broken hearts (I gotta get him back!) Broken lives (We can change!) and broken spirits (We will make it different this time!!). They are everywhere. All the while, tweek knows you will come back with just the slightest inhale of its aroma.

My resolve is strong and tweek still continues to lose.

Suddenly, without warning, into your life walks a current lover of tweek. With your current distance and resolve you can see clearly why you made a mistake. Tweek tricked you. It is dangerous! You have brought the danger into your home! Your lover knows you will come back to tweek. You share your insights with your lover…your revelations but still tweek takes him away. Even though you haven’t seen the tweek or touched it, once again it is has left you a mess in your own home.

I understand tweeks power to be greater then I knew. It still affects me without being in me, near me or around me.

And as I gaze into this beautiful man’s eyes and see the quarter size pupils and hear his halted and stuttered speech, I realize that tweek has tricked me again. Seduced me. Tried to make me come back.

Tweek came into my life and changed it so much. So dramatically but left with nary a word as if nothing occurred at all.

But it lurks in the corner.

Happy Birthday Wizard of Oz

Its been 80 years….

Suicide: Is it Painless?

My young friend committed suicide this week. i was greatly saddened to here the news but i also understand all the suffering he felt.

i tried to commit suicide myself. A number of times. Im told i present myself well in public. Many depressed people put on that horrible “Happy Face” as if that will make depression go away. My friend presented VERY well, indeed.

i understand the absolute, mind numbing pain one feels throughout their body. It is unbarable when you are alone with your thoughts. Thinking spins, minuscule things grow into unfixable problem. i found away out with sleeping pills. i got close that time but finally pulled through…barely. My friend was having a REALLY bad day.

I learned how unfair it was and is to leave friends and family with so many questions and concerns one couldnt do more.

It is more difficult to reach out and ask for help than stewing in depression. Reaching out makes you have to deal with people and your just going to stay in bed, instead. Im still known to “check out ” and indulge the depression.

I am truly sorry my friend didn’t reach out. I could have told him more about my treatments. i, of all people, should have seen the signs, no? No, he was determined.

Depression is just the lack of hope for anything. Since my friend cant here my voice i say to you, i have worked incredibly hard to learn how to manage my depression. After several doctors, i found the right match. The cocktail of pills i take have, for the first in years been depression free for 7 months. im 56. i was 18 the last time i tried to kill myself but i did learn to hang on to hope.

Random, free streaming thoughts…

SUICIDE PREVENTION

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TREVOR PROJECT

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