Now, like I promised, something a bit more positive and fun than castigating people for their unresponsiveness. A spoon-full (or is that a cube? ) of sugar, and all that.

My experiences with mind-altering substances of a non-prescription nature have been few and far between for many reasons, none of them being any resistance on my part to the idea of illicit substances. Indeed, as any of you who know me know, I find the idea of criminalizing victimless acts to be, well, criminal and just one more sign of the cultural insanity bequeathed upon this schizoid country by its original European settlers: Puritans and their fundamentalist religious zealot ilk.

No…I just don’t find it very constructive or alluring to take (IMHO) too-frequent vacations from reality. This is one of those small things in my psyche for which I’m very grateful. When it comes to substances, legal or not, I just don’t have addictive tendencies. I suppose I should add this to my Thanksgiving “thankful list.” Sex, intimacy, codependence…they’re another story, though at least the sex part is easier for me to deal with courtesy of my greatly-diminished post-op libido.

I also pass no judgment about the desire to either “take the edge off” or to take lengthy leaves of absence from everyday reality. Believe me, I can sympathize. Ever since puberty, “reality” has been something of a sworn nemesis of mine for relatively obvious reasons. Fantasy worlds like Dungeons & Dragons and other role-playing games or those of sci-fi/fantasy novels and comics were my escape of choice through adolescence. In college, it was sex and hedonism (though, admittedly, that was also quite a bit to do with self-exploration as well since, without those adventures, my most profound personal epiphany would have certainly taken much, much longer!).

All that said, the changes imposed on me by circumstance in 2008, and really in the last 3 years if I want to be completely honest, have left me depressed and ill-equipped to cope. Finding my way out of the rut I’ve been in has been difficult and frustrating. So, when a new friend offered me an opportunity to make my neurons fire differently, I didn’t pass it up. Perhaps, I thought, this was just the kind of rut-buster I needed.

I wasn’t without some trepidation. The particular “vehicle” for this journey was one with which I’d had a handful of experiences in the past, all of which were both unenjoyable and non-constructive. Still, with a different set and setting and with people I knew would a) be sharing this journey, and b) be very warm, caring, and supportive despite not knowing them very well, I thought it would be worth the chance. How right I was.

The experience itself was not at all what I expected, perhaps even hoped, it would be, but it was very much the one I needed. Instead of gaudy visible or synesthesic effects, I was treated to what I can only describe as an “instant imprinting” effect coupled with an ease and satisfaction with simply being, both alone and among my fellow psychonauts, that has escaped me in daily life.

I connected easily with the others on many levels, including sexually. That’s one thing that’s really been missing for me since I dated Jenny during the first half of last year. I’ve had sex since then, but it was without that feeling of connection that was facilitated this past weekend by our “ticket to ride.” Real connection, despite my ability to make “fast friends” (thank you, vagrant youth!) and my willingness to be wide open with new people, is very hard to come by for me. Thank you three (and everyone else whos been reminding me of this at other times) for helping me feel desirable and worthy of it.

I also, on the tail end of the trip, had a very helpful and cathartic discussion with my hostess about the extreme likelihood that I was an undiagnosed hyperlexic as a child, and the effects that this has had on me on into adulthood. I count the vehemence and rigidity with which I hold certain ideas and opinions (most notably to do with words and meanings), the almost painful discomfort I feel when exposed to stimuli I find distasteful, and my extreme difficulties with nonverbal communication among these.

I also think that the chemicals involved had a lot to do with easing the passage of a message that had been having trouble penetrating my thick cranium in regular life from people like my therapist when they were expressed to me during our wee voyage. Namely, that I somehow need to find it within myself to be OK with being in the space I’m currently in even with all its uncertainty, questions, and fear. The traumatic stripping away over the last few years of all the things that made me feel happy and on the right track during the latter half of 2005 and the first two months of 2006 were, perhaps, necessary to put me into the chrysalis I’m in now. Then, perhaps, I can emerge from it changed again and better able to deal with this new phase of my life…to find new purpose and new satisfaction…to go beyond the carefully-controlled and increasingly narrow comfort zone I’d carved out for myself.

It’s not going to be easy. I know this. It’s one reason I’ve been so paralyzed of late by fear, anxiety, and depression. I had recognized even before becoming semi-employed that this was going to be a journey of 1,000 miles which was going to take me to a new place that likely didn’t include staying on (or, as the case may be, staying on full-time) with my erstwhile employers and co-workers, as much as I really do like them.

It’s also been too easy to give in to feelings of aloneness and despair at the prospect of, once again, pulling myself up by my own emotional and fiscal bootstraps, especially when my personal reserves of wherewithal have felt so drained. I see now that I owe all the friends who were there for me, listening to me express those very feelings, a deep and heartfelt apology for the fact that those feelings were demeaning to them whether I meant them to be or not. I’m sorry. I really am. I’m sorry now, and I’m sorry if I lapse in the future. I’m not really alone even when staring at my own four walls, and I resolve to remind myself of this regularly.

I know that one trip over one night and day isn’t the whole 1,000-mile journey. It’s just the proverbial first step of more than I can count and possibly more than I’ll even have time for in my allotted span.

Finally, I think that my next step is, by necessity, going to have to be learning to accept that I’m never going to be able to achieve or learn or experience everything in this life that I might care to…hell, I won’t even have time to consider all the available worthy options! Whatever choices I make don’t have to be The Best of All Possible Choices™, just good and worthwhile ones. In the previous phase, my pursuit was obvious: find myself and make myself out of the given materials. The question of what to do with myself needs to be one I can allow myself to answer without those stresses.

*sighs*

Does this mean I’m going to have to learn the Getting Things Done™ system? Bloody hell!

Still, amazing what progress one can make when one has the right tools at one’s disposal and a willingness to actually use them. Happy New Year, indeed.