A History of Vices Part 1

Hi all!

I'm pretty excited about this, for whatever reason. Perhaps because I'm really writing again and that feels great. I know I am writing about myself, but more introspective writing seems to be my modus operandi now. 

I'm going to just post this in parts- it's all draft-mode at this point and I'd LIKE to get this published (!!!) someday. I hope.

Anyway- writer friends, if you have feedback- please! I seriously wrote this over the course of the past hour.

A History of Vices

I. Caffeine

I am a child then. Some people call it soda, but we in Erie, PA call it “pop.” I don’t have it that often as a small child; my Mom and Dad are pretty reasonable people about limits.

“It will rot your teeth,” Mom tells me when I protest the milk in my converted jelly jar glass with Bart Simpson skateboarding on it. “It will make you fat.”

Pop is then reserved for outings and Grandma’s house. Grandpa has cases of Pepsi lining their chaotic vortex of a basement. Whenever I carefully walk down the creaking stairs, I survey box after box after box like a miner who just hit gold. It’s almost sacred to me. Sometimes I have two cans of Pepsi and I feel like I’m flying.

My parents comment on how I act so wound up after a glass of ice-cold Coke (not the diet kind I drink now) at a restaurant. It’s a common joke: Oh, it’s the caffeine. I make the most of what I have when I’m out. I start crashing on the rides home where my Dad cranks AC/DC or the Eagles or the Doors. My eyelids get heavy. By the time we pull into the driveway and I scamper into the house, I collapse on the couch, asleep. A girl rag doll. My Dad picks me up in his arms and takes me to my bed. I’m six or seven or eight. I can smell my Dad’s Old Spice deodorant. This is the smell I will forever associate with him. This is how I will remember him.

When I am 13 or 14 or 15, I gain weight. I gain a lot of weight. I throw away the brown bagged lunches my Mom makes for me and eat barely anything during our lunch breaks. My friends make their comments, but I don’t care. I never care what people have to say, only when it hurts me. I can’t determine why I get “fat.” The usual suspects would be junk food and lack of self-care. I walk a lot and don’t overeat that often. I have my moments, like any hormonal teenage girl. I take up track. I want to be fit. I don’t cut down on the Pepsi or Coke or root beer. It’s not even so much the taste at this point- it’s the rush of the caffeine. I don’t realize there are other ways to get my fix. Not yet at least. I’m also on Paxil, which has turned me into a complacent, soft zombie. It’s this experience that will scare me away from behavioral drugs for the next several years.

Eventually, I have to make a choice. Caffeine is my first vice and it’s the one I can’t beat. When I’m in college, I switch to coffee and diet sodas. Energy drinks come later and soon become my poison of choice. 

I realize at some point, my tolerance has gone up, whether I was aware of the moment it happened or not. I drink three energy drinks in one day at work. My head feels warm. My heart is not beating- it’s now thundering in my ears, sounding like it might simply self-destruct at any second. I am no longer the joyful, careless little girl in her parents’ car. I’m now a terrified young woman in a cubicle. I get on the bus and go home, eyeing every stranger like they have some secret agenda. I walk to Safeway when I get off, and slip my arm into the blood-pressure machine. My blood pressure is at hypertension levels; my pulse is well into the 100s.

At 25, after a lifelong love-affair, I realize I have limits with caffeine. I realize three energy drinks in one day may eventually kill me. But I can’t stop consuming the only vice that keeps me going. On the days I abstain, my head is a motherfucking cloud. My eyes are raining. There is pressure in my chest; I can only hypothesize what that means.

I am no longer flying. I have hit my wall, and it appears the atmosphere below may burn me.