So I happen to live in a state that just legalized recreational marijuana. At one time in my life this would have caused me to jump for joy as if I were the winner of a billion dollar lottery jackpot. Not so much these days, but still, you just can't help feeling a bit of nostalgic excitement, how could you not?
I hadn't used marijuana for years, and if you would have asked me a year ago if I would ever smoke marijuana again, I likely would have said no. You see I've actually become somewhat anti-drug these past few years, only because I've been living around the worst example of druggies and drunks that have sort of turned me off to the lifestyle. I was like I want to be awake, not asleep, I don't want to be a burnout who spends the rest of their life sedated.
I used to be a pothead in my youth, but fortunately it only lasted a few years. The last time I had smoked marijuana was probably about 20 years ago. Hard to believe it's been that long. I thought maybe it would be the last time, since I don't smoke cigarettes either, but now that marijuana has been legalized my curiosity just got the best of me. There's no way you can be an ex-marijuana smoker and pass up the opportunity to buy legal marijuana in a store. It's like history in the making. After all I sometimes have trouble getting to sleep and alternate between taking melatonin or drinking beer. I thought maybe I should try marijuana to see if it would help with my insomnia, it is after all a medically approved treatment for insomnia, isn't it?
So anyway, I got all excited, and decided to research the products available for sale. They have a website that shows the entire inventory of the different marijuana strains for sale and for what price. It was a lot of fun researching these different strains. I felt like a kid planning their big trip to the candy store. The next day I woke up early, had to get money from the ATM because they only take cash, and rode my bicycle ten miles to the dispensary and waited in line for nearly two hours to buy my very first medical grade legal marijuana. Yes, it was a very long wait, a small store and a very long, slow moving line. Everybody but one guy was wearing a mask. Isn't it special that he was the one guy standing next to me, me of all people, a person whose been wearing a mask since March of last year, when hardly anyone else was. Fortunately for his bad attitude he decided he wasn't going to wait in this long line with a potential three hour wait and would come back tomorrow. Bad incident avoided.
It was really weird but exciting at the same time. The time passed strangely fast, it was like being in this alternate reality, and I wasn't even stoned, waiting in this barely moving line that was at the same time imperceptibly moving forward, with a bunch of geriatric mask wearing Cheech and Chongs, who you can just tell have been smoking marijuana all this time every day these past twenty years that I've abstained.
I wasn't sure what to get, so I decided to get both sativa and indica, one for the daytime, one for nighttime. But then after the fact I thought to myself why the hell did I just buy marijuana for the daytime, when I don't even plan to use it in the daytime, because I only got it to help with my insomnia at night? I mean after all I don't even drink beer during the day, it's something I use to help me unwind at the end of the day. Well, I bought this sativa strain that's supposed to be really good for creative inspiration, since 5000+ people reviewed said it was. So I was thinking maybe this is just what the doctored ordered. Well, not quite. I ended up being in that 1 percent of people who had the exact opposite effect, didn't work for me at all, just made me extremely nervous and paranoid, with dry mouth and rapid heartbeat. It was not exactly my idea of a good time. It was a major disappointment.
The indica on the other hand I had better results with, didn't really put me to sleep, but definitely relaxed me. But at what cost? After about a week in, smoking every night, I've become super lazy. I've been sleeping later, like super late. I'm usually up by ten, but the last few days, I've been sleeping until after 1pm. This is unheard of for me. Alright I work a second shift job, so I'm no early bird, but unless I was sick I hadn't slept this late in probably twenty years.
I'll probably use up what I have, but not sure if I will buy it again. Although it's making me feel more relaxed and less stressed out during the daytime as an after effect, but has definitely caused me to be much too lazy. I notice this because I am not ordinarily a lazy person at all. I'm actually very hardworking, responsible, and goal orientated. But now I'm just lazy. Seriously. On the one hand it's helping to relieve my stress, but at the same time it's killing my ambition, making me lazy and unproductive. And that is not good for me. But this is just an experiment, I do not plan on being a regular user, it's an expensive habit that could end up interfering with my job, and is just not worth it to me.
That being said I've had some strange trips down memory lane while under the influence of marijuana this past week. It's weird that first hit I had, the first hit in 20 years, before the nervousness and paranoia hit me hard, I felt like I was transported back to a stoned 16 year old me, a specific memory of being high and being interrogated by my mother, and trying to hide the fact that I was stoned, but she already new, I thought it was some sixth sense, but apparently she could smell it on me. And it was really causing me to have a bad trip, but it wasn't just that, I was remembering it like I was transported to the same headspace, like I was there experiencing it all over again. So this stuff can trigger memories of an emotional nature. This might be useful in therapeutic setting, or not. What good is gained by reliving painful emotional experiences from your past?
I don't know. Some aspects of it can be fun, and when used in moderation there may be some therapeutic effect, but probably a bad idea to become a habitual user, especially if the negatives outweigh the pros, which I suppose would be somewhat of an individual matter.
Talking about negatives, another important point you should be aware of is that even if you live in a state that has legalized recreational marijuana, even medical marijuana, your employer still has the right to fire you or not hire you if you test positive for marijuana. And since I don't plan on keeping the same job I have forever, I may need to be drug tested again, and am not going to let this marijuana prevent me from getting the job of my dreams, if such a job even exists. I like to keep my options open, and would hate to have an experience that wasn't even all that great jeopardize everything. So stay tuned.
I've already unearthed a suppressed memory, not mentioned here, and I may even write about it some day, and maybe there will be more to follow. Who knew marijuana could be useful in retrieving lost memories? Even I didn't know, or maybe I just didn't remember.