jamila

"There is a passion in me that doesn't long for anything from another human being."

I'll start at the beginning, if I can find it. There is no true befinnning, and I warn you, there is nothing profound about my trip from self-hatred to enlightenment. I cannot even promise that I completed the journey, for the mystics will caution it is a quest with no end. But I've begun, anyway. I've come farther than I thought my attention span would carry me.

Adolescence found me casting aside sound judgement to live for the high. That false buzz of a bumbling teenage boy sucking the tender patch of skin behind my ear. Hmm...it sort of felt good, even knowing that there would be ugly purple marks left behind long after I'd forgotten his name and he'd lost my phone number.

Lust is the gateway drug.

To justify my experimental approach to life, numbness was the key. High as a kite, it's difficult to over-analyze anything.

Funny how my tendency to overthink is both my radar for stupid decisions and my obstacle to spiritual awakening.

Fifteen-year-old girls should never roll that crisp one dollar bill that way. They are the only ones who cannot see the heartbreaking beauty of their naivete and purity, burned off like fog while powder burns the back of their throat.

Insincere laughter should always be feared.

That same girl, thinking of nothing but all of those reasons to hate herself in this moment, the same quirks she will see as strengths when she grows up. Those little flaws that separate her from the perfection she longs for will become the unique traits that define her for the rest of her life.

Try tell that to a coked out teenager. She won't believe you. She'll giggle in that practiced way that makes her appear pleasantly vapid and think that you just don't understand.

I did. I wasn't perfect. That was the only thing that stood out in my mind.

To say that superficiality ends at adulthood would be a lie. I just didn't understand that someday, the piercing beauty of my sharply green eyes would help me overcome the disappointment of other characteristics.

Don't get me wrong, I still care. My Wonderbra collection has not diminished with age. But I no longer hate myself for my shortcomings.

Enough cocaine will cause any sixteen-year-old to shelve her passion for literature to pursue a new lifestyle.

What is it about that age that makes us think the future is a myth, that causes us to see everything important as obstacles in our path to a good time?

Fuck, what is it about that age that made me think that being the girl who could drink the most tequila was a greater accomplishment than being the girl who could write beautiful prose?

The lost years of development in that skill have handicapped my talent forever.

I did not know how important those missed opportunities would be, that I would wake up one morning with relief that I had been able to avoid the kitchen knives by exhausting myself into sleep will millions of bitter tears of helpless surrender.

That morning, I woke up. Out of sleep, but also out of my haze of self-pity.

You hate yourself long enough, your friends will start to agree with you.

But that's not a bad thing.
You want to change your life.

Make a list: change oil, check.
Buy milk.
Check.
Become who you thought you would before you destroyed yourself.
Fuck.

The problem is, it's not possible. So I gave up. For a while.

You can't ever get there.
But that's not the point.

If it were attainable, you would come to a point where your work is finished.

Trust me, you never want to get to that point.

I don't know if I believe in God. I don't know if I want to believe in God.

To believe, you have to also come to the miserable realization that if God exists, He's the one responsible for you and all of your potential for pain.

That papercut? Fucking God. That chest-crushing first heartbreak? He did that to you.

Welcome to spiritual roadblock.