I want to get lost in a supermarket again. And not like the fun “I am tripping so hard that I can’t find my way out sort of “lost”. The lost I speak of is to be truly fucking disoriented and terrified. I want to be in delirious shambles when a kind-hearted and worried stranger walks up to me and asks if I am OK. But even with their concern about my mental health, I won’t be able to collect my emotions and they will contact a manager to try and console me. Considering my age, I am sure the police will be called and I will spend a night in the mad house.

One of my first memories was of me being scared and alone in a grocery store with my parents only an aisle or two over. I don’t know how I got so turned around, but there I was: a pale child with a curly blonde afro and bright blue eyes, crying like I owed the mob money, not knowing what to do.

A nice lady came up to me and asked if I was OK and I didn’t really have the words to tell her. I think I was around 4 years old. I was always told not to talk to strangers and that made the situation worse. I bumbled over words without clear direction. I was shaking. The world was too big to handle. The safety net was gone.  And as she was talking to me my Mom turned the corner and noticed the scene. The fear left and I was saved.

I know there are many ways to be entrenched dread in as an adult and they don’t involve something as trivial as a Wal-Mart grocery aisle. There are horrors in the news every day that could scare any man straight. I am sure being caught in a hostage situation is frightening. People that go through traumatic events like that have to deal with some serious shit after the dust settles. I don’t desire that, per say, and I don’t mean to trivialize what they go through. It’s not trauma that I am looking for. I crave youthful emotion to hang my hat on.

All the new responses I have now are met with some sort of cynicism. If you take away the past experiences clouding the present, Voila! You have something worth a damn! There are ways to get closer to these experiences as an adult and I have set a mental plan in motion to find that leftover cocaine again. I will be writing some blogs about my endeavors as they go.

I know now that it was ignorant bliss, but I remember as a child, that around Christmas time, everyone was happier. They smiled more and said nice things. Experience and empirical evidence have dismantled that idea, and really, that mood I was sensing was an alcohol induced trance among the people I met. They weren’t all excited about gifts and Jesus. I just thought they were because I was overwhelmed by what my understanding of life had told me so far. I didn’t have credit card debt or long lines at Best Buy. And the promises of religion hadn’t fallen flat, yet. Either way, it was real to me. I remember that intuition about the world around me. Life was more vibrant and I was more aware.

I remember a summer, a summer of love, self-love. Those three months with no school, no parents all day and the bra section of the Sears catalog changed my life forever! I discovered the utility in my own body. I cured what ailed me, so they say. And let me tell you, there was and will never be anything like that feeling! Ok, I know you’re thinking that having sex for the first time is just as awkward, more life-altering and ultimately better. But when I had sex for the first time it came with consequence and it involved someone else. Condoms, birth control, babies, madness. The raw state of emotion and experience was robbed by these things a little bit.

There is no going back. We are on a Westbound train and the brakes are shot and the Conductor is dead. It will be fun. Enjoy the ride. The last time I really experienced something truly groundbreaking was when I took psychedelics. That was a game changer. This post isn’t exactly promoting that. Unless you want to try them, because I may recommend them, for adults in need of a change. But that was not my intention.

What I am trying to do here is remember what it was like to enjoy the senses as a purist – to feel part of the universe instead of living in defiance of it. The odds of my existence were stacked in the house’s favor from the get go. But I won. I am here now and that’s what matters. I’m trying to stretch out beyond my comfort zone, get the wheels in motion and ultimately live where the wild things are – just at the edge, where it’s far more interesting. That’s what I am trying to do here, but, like usual, I just end up talking about masturbation.