Everything. Left. Behind.

Part One: Rejoining. The. Living

So you might be wondering what I could possibly have to talk about at 19 years young and only been a working class citizen for a little longer than a year and I've spend probably less than a month deciding that I want to be writer and tell this story. I've been asked to write this story from the moment this story started writing itself. I falsely believe I had a choice and writing it. I constantly used the excuse "I'm not a writer" for my reasoning behind why I wasn't getting the story down on page. Now it doesn't matter who writes this story all hat matters in it is written. So here I am rejoining the living just like I did this time last year in a hospital room.
The beeping slowly makes you aware of the fact that you're in a hospital anytime you wake up in a hospital. It's the quickest way of placing your surroundings once you've regained consciousness with no recollection of losing it to begin with.  The beeping is comforting because all in all hospitals are safe and it's reassuring to know that you have this level of safety when you first awake. At least it was for me until I became fully self aware. The problem for me was that I was alive not that I was in the hospital but alive anywhere was pretty bad. It was relieving to know that I wasn't dead. Towards the end of my over dose I started wishing there was away to take it back but didn't have the will power to save myself. So I past out in my bed with my little brother on the top bunk feeling pretty damn certain that he would be the one to find me the morning after sending a note explaining why I was ending it and why, for me at the time, it felt like it was the end.
   So you can see why being in the hospital was a lot scarier than being dead because it meant everyone I know is aware of my attempt and I was going to have to looking them all in the eyes and explain why I did it.
Luckily enough I was so high from Overdosing that I honestly don't remember the aura of sadness in the room as I explained how I was trying to kill myself and No, it was just be trying to abuse Zoloft for the effect. I was, in fact, suicidal and  purposely trying to take my life instead of reaching out for help. I'll probably never be able to tell you what that conversions like for the shoes of the person being informed that your loved one is suicidal but judging by the look on my mom and uncle's faces it must not be the easiest news to hear. I don't get it too this day why they would be so lost with me. I hardly make their lives any easier but the great thing about family is that they love you even if theirs no good reason why. I was back at work the very next day after gaining back my conscience but not my sobriety. I learned how amazing being sedation can be and had a new passion for controlled and contaband substances. I did not Pursue this passion at first because my eye was caught by a 210 pound powerlifter walk though the doors on my store,walk up to my register, and ask my supervisor for an application. I thought he must have been joking he was wear a superman snap back with a match top, short, shades, and flip flops a whole outfit of superman logos threw up on this guy and he's applying for a job. He's clothes  screamed money but the application showed he was hard up for cash. The clothes chimed back in and said not too hard up for cash because he's not putting a lot of effort into finding a job.
I thought all these negative things about him right of the bat and it was honestly I was jealous. he seemed like he had everything and I just tried to kill myself over everything I just lost. It hardly seemed fair but damn I was wrong. The kid took the application.  ( I called him kid, he's a whole year older than me but damn it I need something to throw at him and his immaturity was the closest thing I could find to a flaw).
I thought about him every free second I had the next couple of days, knowing he was going to change my life if he started working with me. He could probably out work me any day of the week, I wasn't going to be the best on the team anymore. I wasn't going to be the most attractive or the youngest. I couldn't be the best or the strongest. I couldn't be the fastest or the most aware. So I gave up and waited for him to get called by my boss and settled into the idea of being the second best but it never came.
The kids first day of work I was assigned as his supervisor and I was completely right about him, he was prefect. He was the most capable guy I ever trained. He only needed to be told anything once and he could repeat performances after being shown every time. He never asked a question, he never spoke out to clear information up . He just watched and understood. I was aware at that moment he could easily out work me at my management position in a matter of days. He never did though. He waited for me to finish throwing information at him then asked if I wanted to get high after work because I seemed to stressed.
I was thrown off for a second, the whole thing seemed crazy sure I've smoked my fair share of weed in high school but for this 19 year old powerlifter, who introduced himself as Kansas, (like how crazy of a name is that) with a dragon tattoo on his right arm that I had never seen before, even though it was clearly done by an experienced artist, which is uncommon around here. Most people have their's done at home or go to an amateur shop in a nearby town. He's tattoo being one of the best if ever seen made me understand two things. First, he was unique. I need to get over my jealousy and befriend him because his life view must be incredible. Secondly, I knew any guy named Kansas with a tattoo from the city knew were to get some good shit. So I said "yeah, let's smoke, you don't need to know anything I taught you anyways. we hired you for stocking so you'll never be behind the counter anyways".
I waited outside by the dumpsters while he clock out. I was extremely nervous, I hadn't hung out with anyone since I dropped out of high school and with the new year coming up it seemed like the prefect time to be making new friends instead of sitting in the dark writing letters to an ex-girlfriend and my reason for dropping out of school in the first place. I can't keep blaming her for all my choices but I'll let that one slide.
Kansas rounded the corner and nodded his head and my direction before climbing into his truck. He pulled up beside me after backing up the 10 feet from were he was parked to were I was standing and informed me that it was ok if I "hopped in, before finishing  your cigarette it won't hurt the smell of this truck it's already to far gone" so I did just that and set in the passenger of his green 2003 Chevy Silverado while he lectured me on the harm caused from tobacco products. That seat became to feel like home that drive, as he craved out the path to his house from my store. That path would become as common as eating, we drove it at least three times a day.
When we pulled in his drive way, it was honestly breath taking. This nice 3 bedroom house right between two small towns, so you don't really belong anyone. A little safe heaven right on the edge. Not to far way that the drive isn't worth it, not so close that other people are bothersome. A gorgeous respite from a life that asked to much from me. 
I climb out of the cab of the car and flicked my cigarette butt. I never broke eye contact with the front door. I was so focused on how I ended up here I didn't see the dog come around the house and start sprinting towards me.
She was the love of my life that year. Her brown hair was so soft when she laid next to me I slept like a newborn. Her deep eyes looked at me with so much comfort I felt like I couldn't possibly be upset. This dog was my anchor.
I didn't know this at the time the 200 pound mound of flesh was dashing towards me. So I jumped in the bed of the truck in one motion. Kansas calmed her down while I watch from above until she was calm enough to put me at ease. I rejoin them on the ground were Kansas explained I was never in any danger. She was just excited to meet a new friend and commanded Lilly  to shake my hand. After greeting Lilly was the minute I love her. She was the smartest dog I had ever met. A great adversary in the emotional war we'd be fight in the coming months, 18 is a hard year.
It's was hard because me and my friends finally understood that teenage rebellion is a lot harder to achieve after high school. The system has given you your chance. What you choice to do from here is up to you. You're on your own and that a terrifying when you've caused yourself the most shortcoming you've had to deal with in your life.
Kansas walked me though the overly stocked house for such little floor space it had so much going on. The living room was most the house. The bedroom were tiny in comparison. The bathroom in kitchen were only the Necessities, no extra room for storage or movement. The living room though had everything from two full sized couches, a reclining chair, a 60 inch flatscreen perfectly placed on the wall so it's in view from every seat in the room, and a desktop in the corner that seemed out of place since it was hardly used. The carpet was a deep blue like the night sky in the spring with long shag that made it warm all day everyday.
I sit on the couch awkwardly while Kansas loaded a pipe. He told me a story about how he ended up in the small town from the big city and how he couldn't smoke with me because he was on probation and couldn't afford to fail a drug test.
You can't explain high it's like trying to describe color, rationalize you're desire to orgasm, or tell someone why you're in love. Something are just greater than words.
That being said when I took the first hit off of the pipe the taste of the herb was better than the intensity of the high. Kansas trailed off with his story while I shifted all of attention to the pipe resting on my finger tips. I decided that I had made I new friend. My first one since dropping out. I continued to take hits and think about the future until my phone ranging bring my focus back to my surrounding when I heard Kansas say "you know that's really everything she left behind". I was intrigued instantly so I explain that I zoned out and need him to "elaborate on that thought process, if he would be so kind as to repeat himself". Which made sense to me at the time due to being sedated. He simply said "all my last girlfriend left behind was two broken knuckles on my left hand, a dented dumpster, and a change of her clothes in my backseat" I took a second to let my mind think about how amazing those words sounded out loud before I I started to ponder what they could have meant.
Kansas watched me hit the pipe again while I started trying to assemble these words like a jigsaw puzzle and rotating meaning like a Rubix cube. He took the time to add "It's like everything she mean to me, all the emotions, all the smells and taste that reminded me of her, and the memories we made together are all fading but all I have that permanently attached to her are damaged ideas and physical possessions".
I exhaled and licked my lips increase the taste before unintentionally saying the world that started this ideology that changed our lives. "If that's all you can leave someone with while you're still alive what does that say about everything you leave behind after your dead" then he said something that defined our friendship. "Have you ever seen American beauty" I wasn't expecting this giant muscle head to introduce me the most inspirationally uplift movie I have ever been treated too.
I was too stoned to remember how I got home that night or anything after the movie ended really. The next thing I knew I was stepping out of a warm shower at my supervisors house because my parents couldn't watch me all the time and I was considered far to fragile to be unattended. I made my way to the living room and allowed myself to settle into the couch. I retrieved a small day planner I bought from the local general store and wrote out at list of everything I left behind that looked a lot like this.
A note to a girl who hasn't even called since I recovered.
A body on the bottom bunk of my little brothers bunk bed. 
A suite case full of clothes and taking back Sunday CDs and vinyls.
A poster of the boondock saints on the bedroom door.
An empty pill bottle in a empty dresser drawer.
The list was simple, things that belong to me but would have been abandoned if I hadn't recovered. Sure, I knew the items wouldn't be thrown away after I passed. My parents and other relatives would hold of to them. Place emotional value in them. They wouldn't be the same though, right now the list was just my stuff but when I'm gone, they'll be the last of my things.
That was the day that I gave up on dying. It wasn't because I happy or even slightly less depressed. It wasn't because I had hope. It was because the world sucked, I had a choice I could make it suck less or I could add to the suckage and ruin my family happiness.
I never believed and living for anyone else but I was convinced that wasn't what I was doing anymore.
I was from that point forward making the world suck less for me and working extra hard at it for them.
So I opened my phone to the calendar to May, 8, of 2015 as the day I rejoined the living.