There comes a time in everyone's life when they realize that everything that they had deeply believed,

everything they thought they knew is challenged and changed. This came to me one night back in the

cold winter days of 2013 back when I had just gotten out of a relationship. Nothing seemed to make

sense. My first girlfriend who I dated in my grade 12 year had cheated on me and left me due to my

depression. This revelation came after numerous reminders from her that we would spend our lives

together, that we were special that our meeting had meaning. Then after a summer of mourning what

could have been I decided to find someone else to crawl to, so she could keep me up until I finally grew

or until me or her became tired of each other. I met this girl in therapy. We were both damaged

individuals, she being subject to an authoritarian mother and guys who used and disposed of her

multiple times. While I was just lost, I had no reason to feel the way I did. Essentially I was just a kid with

an emptiness that could never be filled, someone eternally broken that was either going to become one

of the great writers of the world and then eventually kill themselves through the drinking or bad life

choices, or I would just self-destruct in a beautiful blaze of glory. At least this is what I thought back

then, how post-modern of me. This girl and I met in therapy and she got me to open up again, allowing

me to open up my heart to the world and all of the promises that doing that might bring. I was happy

until she left me for a guy who disposed of her. Like the never ending cycle of suffering I noticed that we

as people were essentially trapped in our own weaknesses and if that was the case then there was no

reason not to throw an incredibly dangerous and fucked up party. There was no plan at this point, get

fucked up, and go to school; just like the girl who continues to feed her own depression by falling for

those who have damaged her in the first place. I too was feeding this vicious cycle of self-destruction.

It all started with an impulse, something that occurs to me regularly. You can say I'm an ideas

man. I think up and plan things that no one in their right mind would talk about because of social

standards. Yet since my id was too powerful this normal set of behavioral rules didn't apply to me. The

impulse was that I wanted to throw a hedonistic party. A celebration of all things that this society loves, I

needed to cut myself down and see just how far I could push the limits of my own boundaries. First

though I needed to find a place, I thought to myself what would be the lowest of the low, a place where

if I threw a party of a certain caliber no one would question it. Then an image came to me a motel, but

not just any motel on that was so use to the underbelly of society that my wish was a standard affair. I

called my one friend John one Saturday morning and asked him what his thoughts would be if I decided

to throw a motel party. He loved the idea, so we began to plan, and prepare. The mandatory

preparation for a motel party is a lot simpler than what I had expected. All that was required is $30 up

front no questions asked and for me to sign a liability form which I left for my friend to write whatever

he wanted. Next, came the alcohol which we bought an excessive amount of. There were three cases of

28 bottles, all of the cheap stuff pabst blue ribbon, we didn't need the flashy stuff tonight, what tonight

was about was how far we could go. After the alcohol we got the shrooms, then the acid all from an

unknown source of course but those are the best kind. The friend you trust knows a friend of a friend

who has connections and the whole thing just sort of happens. As for who would show up we planned

the motel party on a night that gave everyone an opportunity to come no matter how late it got. Friday

nights are always the best, you get the week to prepare and the weekend to recover especially on

something as insane as the recovery that would be needed after this. That is if we survived. I got a

sufficient amount of my friends together to start a party so that anyone who shows up early wouldn't

feel that anything weird was up. After a few hours a decent amount of people were at the party at least

10 in total. For a motel party that was a good load of people and would have been a satisfactory number

to keep the party going for a while. It was at this time when I was sufficiently drunk, and high that I

decided to take a tab of LSD. Unfortunately with LSD the drug doesn't kick in right away it's a slow

burner. Entering your blood stream through the process of oral ingestion which takes time for your

stomach acid to break down the compound chemicals so that it can travel up your blood stream to

eventually break the blood, brain barrier. This is a huge problem for someone like me, who was hoping

to get higher than I ever have been to experience things no one has ever experienced. So I decided to

take 4 more tabs of LSD to speed up the process as well as eating 4 grams of shrooms just for insurance.

It still took time, but eventually it kicked in and everything all at once came to a conclusion. Bits of

pieces of that night still remain a mystery after that, I don't see the party as a coherent linear story in my

memories. In fact the whole experience was more of a jumbled mess of scenes coming at me in a

jangled up and misplaced order. At one point I was lying on the couch talking to someone I should not

have been talking to. The next I'm in the tub with a towel above my head in a fetal position. One second

I'm seeing a kid who I have never seen party due to his sheltered innocence, snort a huge line of

cocaine. The next I'm in a dark room filled with sleeping bodies sharing the tattered remains of the bed,

and other furniture. Essentially what did happen was more of a slow motion movie of insanity where I

viewed myself from a third person view above myself as more and more people came into the motel

room.

From a certain perspective one could say that I was a complete mess. Crawling on the floor, losing my

sanity, and just doing all around bizarre actions that made no sense to anyone but me. Yet to myself all

that I was and everything I felt was not trivial but very important. The way I acted was because I felt

everything all at once. I could feel my heart beat, my lungs expand, my sweat pour over me. It was

frightening and exhilarating. The anxiety of knowing what you were doing was insane and seeing

peoples perplexed reactions to your certain actions that left them speechless. It was overwhelming,

everything seemed slow and fast all at once and my actions did not feel like my own. I tried to reach for

things that weren't there; a friend would tell me later. I was saying things that didn't make sense like

how I understood the universe and everything all at once; another friend told me the next morning. I

remember very little of what I was thinking except for a few things. That the universe is huge, that we

are small, there is no one out there to save us, and I was going to die. Sounds pretty dark; that's because

it is. There is a saying that goes: "the truth will set you free but first it's going to piss you off" and never

had that sentiment been as true as in that moment. All my life I had believed in some sentiment of God,

or spiritual energy. Yet whenever I suffered nothing came to help me, nothing came to guide me. I had

to do it all my own and suffer for a long time. I hated God and myself, I hated life, and everything in it. I

had no meaning, nothing and that scared me and the simple act of that fear kept me from exploring that

feeling any farther. Only when the boundary was removed and my creativity and fear was turned inward

by the drug was I allowed to explore my inner fears fully. I was trying so hard to find something in this

life that meant sense or just made me want to move forward and the only thing that did that was

burning all sense of perspective I had built up from the world by listening to what others had taught me.

Then using all those different collective perspectives and beliefs to come to my own conclusion and that

could only happen after I faced my worst fears. I looked into the abyss.

It didn't stare back or at least not in the way one normally thinks of such things. The abyss

doesn't stare there is no sense of purpose or sentience, it is just nothingness, completely empty. What

looks back is your own conscious and subconscious mind. It is you seeing yourself truly like a hedonistic

form of self-meditating. Through this experience I ended up becoming scared and without thinking I lost

myself and went into a rage, punching a hole into a wall and kicking everyone out of the motel. Except

for those who were closest to me and refused to leave so that they could look after me. After raging and

seeing everyone leave I immediately gave up on my madness and just slumped down to the ground as

people tried to comfort me. I couldn't sense them, it was as if I did not notice them and I was entirely

enthralled with my battle within. After everyone fell asleep passed out from the alcohol or the drugs, or

just pure exhaustion I was still awake. One of the many problems with LSD is that it makes your mind go

into a kind of stimulation. So you could physically feel exhausted but your mind will not stop running

through different kinds of thoughts and ideas. At about 5 am in the morning I walked out of the motel

into the cool winter air. I could sense that spring was coming and that I was on the precipice of change.

Everything I had known, everything that I had believed in and the way I had acted was about to change. I

had to grow up. Like the seasons of the year I was leaving my time of the cold dead winter and entering

the dawning of something new. I walked out towards the 401 and found myself in the middle of

nowhere somewhere it seemed removed from everything. I couldn't hear cars, people, or anything

really just the wind and the crunching of the snow as I walked further and further into this field. As I

reached the middle of the field I decided to lay down in the snow and just stare up towards the stars.

Which was now colored by an array of different shades of light as the sun was slowly creeping it's way

into our land. I just watched the colors bounce about, and counted the stars that disappeared slowly

hiding behind the sun's majestic and powerful rays. I felt as if I was happy, for the first time in a long

time I felt in the moment and alive. I looked at myself, all my faults and fears and survived. I looked at

the coldest realities of the universe and I accepted it. I went through the crucible fire that tests those

who are worthy and I passed not unscathed but I passed nonetheless. It dawned on me that yes my fear

of the universe not caring was true. God whether he exists or not is never going to save me or anyone, I

was alone with my own thoughts and no one will fully understand me. I will never amount to anything

really as everything I do will eventually be eaten away by time and be forgotten. There is no eternal

meaning of life and morals don't exist. Life and death are meaningless and we are all going to die. Yes

the dawning of these realizations dawned upon me and branded me with scars as they would anyone.

Yet I also came to the conclusion that meaning, morals, God, and empathy are all subject to perspective.

We each have the capability to destroy and create and whether or not it is meaningless we as human

being can find something to believe in. The universe may not care but I do and technically I am part of

the universe. It is up to us to determine our own worth and meaning and not have anyone tell us right

from wrong. Only when we follow our own path and come to our own conclusions can we truly be true

humans capable of changing the universe and our world. Maybe not for the better, maybe not for the

worse either. We could just change something and our family and connections with people and

perspectives and ideas are really what matter. I came to the conclusion that I am free to be happy or not

depending upon what I chose and even if I have terrible days, even if I can't even think because of how

sad I am. I will still get right back up, dust myself off and keep on moving forward trying to learn from

that experience. I will try to find a light or at least be a light in this world and live a life full of experiences

making as much people happy as possible while making myself happy at the same time. Hedonism isn't

for me, self-destruction isn't for me. Yet you can't know how far the line is without jumping over it

yourself. As I lie there in the cold, snow filled field I realized I want to understand others perspectives,

and I want to try and be the best person I can be. I know I will make mistakes, I know I will fail but I will

keep trying and I will always keep myself in check. I will always try to reach others if not through my

words then through my actions. I make my own meaning for myself no one else can decide my worth,

happiness, or wellbeing. It all relies on me and I understand that now.

After spending what seemed like an eternity trapped in the moment I got up out of the pocket

of snow that I had made for myself. Brushed the snow off of my pants and coat, then walked back to the

motel. Everyone was gone except for the two people who I needed most. They helped me clean up, put

the beers into boxes, the beds back where they belonged and then leave the motel. I tipped the cleaner

as I felt really bad for what this awakening had done. Once I was trapped in that moment of self-

destruction and chemically induced happiness I didn't think of hurting anyone outside of myself. I was

very arrogant, and selfish in how I went about this. Me and my two other friends walked to the beer

store to return the empties. Walking with multiple boxes in hand having cars honk at us as we were

walking. All of us hung over, ears ringing and exhausted, yet when we all looked at each other and saw

the sorry state that we were in we couldn't help but laugh. We laughed so hard we felt that we couldn't

breathe. We laughed at our losses, our anger, our pain, our joys, and our successes. Everything was so

damn funny and so messed up and absurd that we just laughed at the world and all of its injustice.

Sometimes that is all you can do. I stopped walking for a second, my friends concerned stopped walking

ahead of me and looked back at me wondering what was wrong. I decided to look back at the motel the

disgusting terrible motel that had cost about 20$ for a night. The disgusting motel where I had done

enough drugs to drive a sane man crazy. The disgusting motel where biker gang members would offer us

mountains of cocaine and would get a friend of mine to brake his sobriety. I stopped looking behind me

and stared back towards my friends who were still waiting for me up ahead. Huge boxes of beer in hand.

Then with this new perspective, with my friends in front of me and my insane dive into depravity behind

me. I took a step forward into my new life.