Why Weed Got Me Thinking about Permission // AMD part 1

Recently I went to Amsterdam (how did you miss my Instagram spam? Come join the fun). It was impulsive, it wasn’t very well planned on my part and it was bloody incredible.

In Amsterdam you can legally smoke weed. Naturally this means there are hundreds and hundreds of coffeeshops (places you can basically hotbox) and weed shops to cater for the tourists – varying in strength, taste and appearance. The locals aren’t bothered by it; it’s like smoking a cigarette to them. And this relaxed unbotherment (is that even a word? Whatever, I’m going with it) got me thinking; why do we want things we do to be acknowledged?

You know when every conversation starts to feel like the one before? Like you’re just repeating yourself and it bugs you, because it’s like saying ‘yes I have grown up’ to a great aunt and there’s no point in it. You feel like you’re wasting air you might need later on. It doesn’t turn into something; it’s just talking for the sake of talking. There’s no definable light bulb moment where everything becomes crystal clear. And then you start looking around you at things like social media or movies or art, or even freaking McDonald’s and you’re wondering – what’s the point in it all?

This isn’t in a suicidal way. It’s in a feeling-the-pressure-of-life way, a wondering-what-you’re-doing sort of way. I fee like I’m not making myself very clear right now, so lemme start over.

You know when you’re having a conversation and trip over your words? Your tongue gets all tied up and you can feel yourself going hot as you scramble to put yourself back on track. But you can’t, so you just become flustered and panicky while your conversationee smiles kindly, except it feels tight and cold instead of kind, so you kind of hate yourself a little bit for messing up. So the conversation carries on but you don’t really pay attention, just smile, as you start to overthink your next move or word. Yeah?

I’ve been feeling that permanently for a while now. It’s like déjà vu for emotions on repeat as life goes on. The flustered ‘you’re so dumb oh my god help’ mortification whenever I talk to some people, or even think an idea out. Everything washes over me as I stay quiet, yet simultaneously when I do talk or do something, I’m expecting it to be noted down and added to the list of Greater Good in my life. Like it’s important, when it’s not. At all.

 I don’t know how these two link – I feel constantly on the defensive, a crick between my shoulder blades making me hunch over, becoming smaller, quieter.

So seeing how relaxed people were in Amsterdam over weed, while passing shops selling weed emblazed objects and clothing, the ‘smokes weed once’ starter packs for better description, I couldn’t help but wonder. Why do people have to take note of our lives?

Even writing this, there’s a voice in my head saying ‘noooo shut up, this is pointless drivel’. Maybe it’s just an overextended existential crisis since turning 20. Maybe I’m turning into a cynic. Maybe Kendall Jenner is the next supermodel of our generation, and maybe Gigi Hadid and Zayn Maliks spread in Vogue magazine is iconic. No actually, scratch that last part. It’s not and she isn’t. Soz not soz.

I feel like I’m rambling, but that’s kind of the point of this piece (fun fact: the first draft ((I usually only write first drafts)) was written on a series of napkins at my work behind the bar). Who cares if I’m rambling? Why do I feel everything I do or say has to be important or noteworthy? Why do I feel this insistent pressure that everything has to add up to some thing big, even the smallest things most people overlook. Why do I feel the need to ask or wait for permission to do things?

And that terrifies me, the idea of wasting any and every scrap of my time. I’m the girl who can’t stand wasting her time; I will multitask like no other just to cram as much into my day as possible. I’m the girl who will go on dates on the down low, feeling no need to tell my friends because I think it will go nowhere. I won’t finish books because I don’t like how they might finish. I’m the girl who cant stand the idea of a knight in shining amour, yet will call him when I can’t sleep.

No one cares if you smoke weed in Amsterdam, just like no one cares all that much what you do. But I want someone to care, for someone to clap me on the back and say ‘you’re doing it, everything’s fine’.  And I do have people contact me, come up to me in person and say they love what I’m doing, which seriously brightens my day. It really does. I just feel this increasing pressure to do more and do better; writing this down makes me think of primary school and being given back corrected work, red ink littering the pages as I felt my stomach drop in shame.

I feel that shame right now, because I’m being vulnerable and that’s always hard for us, but right now I feel both needy and fed up all at once. I sometimes even get tangled up in myself I just feel like AHHHHHHH FUCK THIS BLAH BLAH BLAH WHATEVER AHHHHHHH to ABSOLUTLEY NO ONE. No one has upset me or harmed me, I’m just fed up and my skin is itching for bigger things. Do you know that mood?

There’s a level of guilt for wanting more, wanting to be noticed or understood that makes us feel like a clichéd teenager with badly dyed dark hair and a questionable piercing. It feels like small things I do are boring, even if it’s time to hang at the pub or a coffee shop with friends, because it takes me away from doing something that could make my life better. Being in Amsterdam, I could only hang with friends in various coffee shops (or coffeeshops, I mean it is Amsterdam) or bars, because that’s what we would do. Or go for walks chatting like crazy over pointless stuff, which felt… nice. Calm.  Like the rabbiting of my heart took time off for once in the past 6 months from all the crap that’s been going on in my life; having to travel like a madman, getting through mountains of coursework, losing my grandfather, turning 20, running back and forth between a town and a city because I have two totally different lives and one has to crash and burn for the other to flourish. I just can’t decide which one.

I started to think about permission; why is there a part of me that needs it? And if so, why is it when I get complimented on my efforts on something, do I then start to put less effort into it? Do I still feel guilty for being ambitious and wanting more, when I know I deserve more?

Right now I have no clear-cut answer; I feel like a walking clichéd of a 20 something student. But who cares about clichés? It just means more people have walked the same road and there’s nothing wrong with that. We all want to get to our destination in some way, so why not take the road most travelled?

So here’s to not knowing our own solutions but carrying on anyways. Here’s to travelling and good company and itches under skin. Here’s to doing whatever we need to get to where we want to go, no matter how foolish it may seem to others. And here’s to being ambitious, even if we don’t know where it may lead us.

I hope you’ve had a wonderful weekend you lovely people.

All the love,

Lou x