Did you know that your body naturally produces cannabinoids? You have a whole endocannabinoid system. And some people naturally produce higher levels than others.
A few years ago there was a flurry of papers on this. Mostly titled things along the lines of Natural High or Are You Always High? The Answer May Surprise You! Depending on who was talking about it.
When they started hitting Brent's newsfeed he passed them along to me. We've always joked that my normal brain status is a lot of people's high as fuck status. I think sideways. I find a lot of things to be hilarious. I eat weird food combinations (or at least I used to). But I don't get high. I've never gotten high. At least not on purpose. I'm pretty sure I got a contact high once from being in a closed room with everyone around me smoking, but it wasn't intense or purposeful so I don't really count it. ANYway...
I don't get high yet a lot of my friends do. It's always been that way. Part of it is my age and where I grew up. A lot of people got high. Parents of my friends were still getting high never letting it go from that summer they thought they might become a hippy. So it would have limited my choices to not have friends who got high. Though I did have a few, don't want you to think everyone was always stoned.
Sometimes we were drunk.
Kidding! That was just me. I was a drinker. I did not get high, but I did drink.
But my normal brain is very much wired in that direction. I go on tangents, as you all know, I like to see the way the world connects. I can spend an incredibly long amount of time contemplating the way the raindrops are forming on the window. Which can be a real schedule buster if you live in Oregon.
So it was interesting to think that, okay yeah, maybe that is what is going on? I was just born high. And maybe that's why a lot of my friends get high. Because we can relate to each other. When they are high and want to talk to someone about what blue would taste like and if we all would taste the same thing could that lead to world peace? they know I'm there, and they don't have to worry if I've also gotten high that day. I'm just down for the conversation.
And when Brent sent me a few of the articles I sent a few on to Kevin. Kevin always said he wondered what I'd be like high, would I get even odder or would I be one of those people that ends up totally paranoid because my brain turns on me? Or, and this was the thought that freaked us both out, would I become really normal? Woah...
The firsts are the worst. Every holiday and anniversary in that first year you lose someone is really hard. And I know it's a weird one, but 4/20 was his holiday. Kevin liked to partake. And he wasn't shy about letting people know he liked to partake. If you looked at the clock and it was 4:20 you'd think of Kevin, one time it bailed me out from forgetting to set a timer on dinner. When I realized I had forgotten and tried to figure out when I put it in the oven I remembered thinking, "Hey, Kevin!" and boom! I put dinner in the oven at 4:20. And on 4/20 you thought of him all day. And you shared jokes with him about leaving brownies out for Snoop Dogg or Willie Nelson the night before. You talked about the difference between the wearing of the green and the smoking of it. You laughed. A lot.
My On This Day feed is full of back and forth with Kevin on 4/20. Though, to be fair, my On This Day feed is always full of stuff from Kevin. He was the best about commenting. It's weird still to post something and not have a joke from him in the comments. Or a "Murph says..." on a cat post. Or a message in my in box when he heard something funny that he thought maybe shouldn't go on my wall.
But 4/20 was different. It is Kevin's Holiday. And I knew it was going to be difficult. I could feel it coming when the calendar hit April. I was really dreading it on Sunday when I started laying out the weekly plans. There is was just looming...4/20. I even tried convincing myself that it wouldn't be that bad because it was always just a joke anyway.
But it's still difficult.
The firsts are always the worst.
No comments:
Post a Comment