Ohio Edge (original) (raw)

You know.. sometimes, it's lonely being edge.

Now, myself, I'm a lonely person in general :-p but thats just because I'm an emotional basket case. However, just because I KNOW I feel lonely for stupid reasons.. doesn't change the fact that I am.

Really now... it's a feeling that is very easy to classify. We've all felt it. Sure, we may end UP feeling via many paths, but we KNOW what the word is for what we feel.

Right now.... I'm lonely. I'm lonely because I feel like I've waited to long to get things rolling in life. I feel like I should have not wasted my time with situations and people. Its not good to hate people in general... but I generally hate people :-p. Still, even with things falling in place in my life... job, paying for college and all... its still there. Defined. There is no mix up... I am lonely.

What does this have to do with straightedge? Everything. Lonleyness is a void.. it wants to be filled. IT NEEDS to be filled, or at least that what it feels like. What can we fill it with? Bad relationships, addictions, false friends.. lots of things. Combinations of things.

Drugs make you feel diffrent. True. Fact. Not disputable. Why do WE rage against them? Diffrent reasons. Some try to find the answer to how this whole straightedge thing started so they can clearly define the guidlines of wich to follow. Sex, definitions of common chemicals like Caffine as drugs... thats all disputable.... but one common cause... Anti-drug. Not disputable. Common cause.

I know this is a long build up, but bare with me...

Lonely feelings take tolls and its not fair to say it only does so to the weak. It happens to all of us. We all have felt it but some of us are fourtunate to only feel it for a short time. Some of us... much longer. So, here we are, floating aimlessly and what do we find? A group of people. Funny! Kind and open. They laugh and they laugh... it feels warm. Lonelyness subsides. What they have in common is a complicated web of interesting views and hobbies. Really, it is quite the group of people. However, when they get together they could do something that is not what WE stand for. Simple as smoking up. So, here they are, passing a joint and laughing. When we are lonely... laughter means so much... it means something to fill the void. They could bring up deep discussions about many a thing.. they are brought together. Together, the fill the void.

So, the temptation to sit down, in the circle, and accept the pass almost seems petty. Why would we pass THIS up? Frienship. Common feelings. To NOT feel lonely... why would we pass it up?

Makes you think. Maby too hard. Let me tell you, I have answers for very few and possibly only myself, but I will share my reason for NOT taking part in what seems like such a simple, and pretty damn harmless (Seemingly) act.

It goes back. Why did I become this way?

Because I am an addict.

However, I have NEVER done any drugs nor taken a sip of alcohol. I never took to many perscription meds and I never even LIKED coffee (Caffine). So, why would I say I am addict? Well... because I am.. or at least, I know I WOULD be.

I feel it inside of me. It wants something to take it all away. It wants to feed on something potent and quick. Addiction outside of substances I DEFINETLY have had. Relationships. Sex. Emotions. I've been addicted to crying for quite some time now.

I feel it, and it gets bigger. Something is making it stir. LONELYNESS.

I would embrace the group. I would revel in acceptance. Simply by inhaling, I would take the easiest of all routs to filling in the need to laugh, cry, hold deep conversation and exercise my mind. Play music. Paint pictures. All that in trade for an occasional night of going against my edge.

I would get everything that keeps me up at night. I'm NOT thinking about straightedge when I lay in a now empty bed.. when I sit in silence without the phone ringing... when I am online and no messeges pop up for hours. Its all comsuming, lonelyness. Consumes our thoughts.. always.

And I would be addicted to love and acceptance. Is that really so bad?

It is when the way I got there was the fast rout. The circle in the living room rout.

Because, these people.. deep and intriging, are complicated just like any other. They take time to decipher and you just cant walk up and say "Hey..." and be accepted. Cept, that comradery that brings them all together. Potent and quick. Easy way in though. Thats the way they met. First a few, then friends, and it was at that place where they found out about their OTHER common interests... outside of those who started it, the whole group is simply a collective of strangers with one binding force. They CREATE the other connections.. once the main one has been made. They could have done it without the drug.. but it was easier this way.

In the end.. I am straightedge because I am PROUD. Pride is dangerous.. so is confidence.. but in my case.. its what keeps me human. To take a drug is to experience MORE. Thats what drugs for pleasure ARE. I would be addicted to my new friends.. so I would go. Every single MOMENT I could be there, I would go. To talk, to laugh, to be CLOSE to someone. I would put things aside to feel this. I would reschedual work so I would be able to do it more often, to be close to these people. When these people grow apart, I wouldent accept it.. I would start to feel lonely. So, I would do drugs with others.. anyone who would BE there. Frantically searching for pockets of people who share NOTHING in common anymore except the quick and potent feeling provided by a substance that, eventally, destroys. Safe drug? No such thing. I would want nothing more than to smoke, snort, inject away the realization that I spent years of my life trying defeat lonlyness only to find it once again.. have it again AND be a mess of a person. Dying. Alone. Nothing to show... shitty job that I made for myself. No money. Just me.. pockets of junkies.. the addiction and the lonelyness.

I am too proud to give in to that. So, I am lonely. I would rather earn frienship through effort. I would want to experience a person by searching for multipul common interests and link them together from the outside in... not from a single, fast, easy center going OUT. Real relationships. Real acceptance. Earn it.. don't do it any other way. I feel, inside of me, an addiction WAITING to be fed.. but I am stronger than it, and I am confident in my ability to overcome.

It's lonely being straightedge.

It's even more lonely to be a jobless, friendless, damn near corpse of a human waiting to die.

sXe for life.