goodnight

I didn't know Maddi, but her death has stirred up some feelings in me I wish would go away. I know a lot of people who have had their lives irrevocably damaged by drugs, although I've had the good fortune of never losing a friend. How long that will last is anyone's guess, since we're all still so goddamn young. Not as young as Maddi, though.

Should she have known better? Of course. But we all do risky things despite the fact that we should know better. Remembering some of the incredibly fucking stupid things I've done makes me cringe when I think about how easily the roulette wheel could've landed on me.

Philip K. Dick, one of my favorite authors and no stranger to the horrible consequences of drug abuse, wrote an afterword to A Scanner Darkly that I can't help but dwell on:

This has been a novel about some people who were punished entirely too much for what they did. They wanted to have a good time, but they were like children playing in the street; they could see one after another of them being killed—run over, maimed, destroyed—but they continued to play anyhow. We really all were very happy for a while, sitting around not toiling but just bullshitting and playing, but it was for such a terrible brief time, and then the punishment was beyond belief: even when we could see it, we could not believe it.

...

These were comrades whom I had; there are no better. They remain in my mind, and the enemy will never be forgiven. The ‘enemy’ was their mistake in playing. Let them all play again, in some other way, and let them be happy.

We need to learn from the mistakes of others. Now go call your mother and tell her you love her.