My parents are overly religious but I smoke weed everyday
Smoking helps me define myself as something else
According to grandad, “if you believe in your heart that Jesus died on the cross for your sins, you will enter the kingdom of heaven.” I looked that man in eye and said “I believe.”
Later that day I got home and took two rips of the bong before going out and getting plastered at the satellite house.
I mean, religion is just so easy. All you have to do is say the right words. At the right times. Maybe even tear up a little bit. Whatever you say, they just hear what they want to hear.
I know I shouldn’t be so hard on religion but whatever, free speech. Anyways, let’s talk about weed. First time I smoked, I was with some kids in my freshman dorm. First couple pulls, nothing happens. They tell me to pull with my chest. I played the saxophone in the past, so I knew what they meant. The third pull felt different. The third pull went straight through my lungs and into my brain. The third pull made me laugh at everything. My friend turned, looked at me and said “Your eyes are the Devil’s balls.” I laughed so hard I blacked out.
Second time, we got ravenous and got one of everything at the Commons Shop and ate it all. Then we got hungry again and ordered Domino’s. Then we went back to the Commons Shop and got some cookies and ice cream for desert. What the fuck Josh, you’re killing yourself. Stop doing this.
Fast forward a couple years, my neighbor has been a dealer so I can get weed cheap and easy, I asked my parents for textbook money and used it to buy a bong, and – the icing on the cake – I live off-campus. I’m still not sure if it’s a recipe for success or disaster.
If pop-pop ever found out how many blunts I take to the face on a regular basis, my black ass would be no more.
To be honest, I’ve set up the perfect façade at home. To them, I was a good student, who worked hard in high school and got accepted into the overall best school in Maryland. I played sports and instruments, I was even the favorite cousin. My aunts tell my mom that they want their kids to be like me all the time.
What they don’t know is that i’m a suffering weed addict who almost failed out of college. Twice.
I use drugs as an escape to that life. A great family, a great student, a great boyfriend, a great education.
That’s no fun.
Being what everyone told me I should be disconnected me from my own life. Being what everyone told me I should be made me a patchwork of other people. Being what everyone told me I should be left me empty at night. I didn’t have something everyone else did. I didn’t have a sense of myself.
Having an overly religious family defined the kind of person I was growing up to be. Smoking weed helps me define myself as something else. That’s all I really want. To be something else.