I know that title sounds like I'm a huge pot-head. And, until recently, that was not untrue. Wait, is this going to be a blogpost about sobriety? Oh no...
Ok well let's just get this part out of the way. I recently stopped smoking weed. Now, I don't have a problem with Mary Jane. She has gotten me through a lot of stuff. She has inspired art, music, epic hangs with friends and LOTS of laughs. However, things had started to get a little compulsive with me. OK, a LOT compulsive. I was vaping pretty much on the hour, and it was starting to give me weird aches in my throat and back.
Also, just in general - Probably not great to do anything that much...? Except maybe drink water.
Full disclosure, my husband and I have been going through some pretty extreme stuff lately. The big stuff. The Questions. Where are we going to live next? Are we happy with our lives? Are we going to make it as a couple? These questions were accompanied with an extra large helping of anxiety that was making life hard - and sleeping at night even harder.
So we've been trying stuff. Most of it is not new. In fact, they're all the lessons we learned back in our 20s and 30s: Yoga is amazing, journaling is cheaper and more effective than therapy, magick is real, and life is not worth living if you're just playing it safe. Also, compulsively smoking weed 24/7 may not be the way you want to do things.
My husband had always had issues with my pot habit, but ...I had a prescription! It's my MEDICINE, Honeyyyyy! But no. That ain't medicine. Nobody needs that much Advil or Welbutrin or Benedryl. Just no. For me, anyway. Everybody is on a continuum, so I am not preaching here AT ALL. I'm just giving y'all an update on what's been happening in my life, K?
Toward the beginning of quarantine (or as I like to call it, The Great Quar), I joined TikTok. If you don't know what TikTok is, please do yourself a favor and go to TikTok.com. It's not going to increase the length of your attention span, but it is cheaper than subscription TV (it's free).
Anyway, I experienced a community and, frankly, a traction in gaining followers that I had never found on other social media platforms. So I've been creating content (silly videos, mostly me lipsyncing to soundbites from TikTok's vast library) and feeling really fulfilled by the interactions I've had with other users and just how supportive an environment it turned out to be (in my experience, more so than the image-is-everything climate of Instagram or the cesspools/echo chambers that Twitter and Facebook have become).
However, I didn't love the fact that, in a lot of my videos, I looked stoned.
Cuz I was.
Until recently, I felt like weed was so connected to my creativity that it didn't feel right to make art without bringing Mary Jane along. And there it was. We had developed a codependent relationship. I was afraid she would get her feelings hurt if I didn't invite her, and besides, things were always more fun with her around. Right?
Well, so through this recent experimentation, I discovered that I didn't actually need weed to make me more creative. I didn't need it to come up with ideas. I didn't need it to perform. I didn't need it to do my makeup. In fact, it took a lot less time without it. PLUS, I didn't have red eyes or a dopey expression in my transition videos.
OK ANOTHER DISCLAIMER: I am not straightedge now. My husband and I still have a glass of wine at night (a few days out of the week), and I've made a rule for myself that I'm allowed to partake in The Cannabis if I am out with friends (i.e. not at home).
And I'm sure these trends will change!
But right now I am grateful for the little bit of sobriety that I've ushered back into my life--20 years later. I'm eating better and working out more consistently. I'm developing projects, and, honestly y'all, the Goddess has been whispering in my ear that my time is coming.
No I'm not going to die. I mean, My Chance. My Shot. My ship finally coming in!
I've had a few dark nights of the soul during quarantine and even considered giving up drag altogether (thinking that I'm too old, not skilled enough or...whatever enough), but a voice inside me said, "Your star is still rising."
And I want to be ready! When the Hollywood spotlight finally does fall on me, I don't want to be scrambling to get it together. I want to have my bags packed, my wigs styled and my outfits stoned (HA! Stoned) and ready to go.
So, in Conclusion:
Do you. But mix it up. Sometimes things feel like they're working just because they're not drastically NOT working, but we are beings who like the newness. We're not here to just keep having the same experiences over and over again. Otherwise, we wouldn't live so long. No, we are meant to have a diverse and multicolored lives full of people and fun and tough times and realizations.
So try something (not meth. something good for you)! Get outside your comfort zone, and do something different. You know what it is. Your soul is probably whispering it to you right now.
Oh, and--Girl, follow me on TikTok!
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