The Best Day Of My Life

For my entire college experience I thought, ‘If I could just get down to 115 pounds I would be happy.’

And then one cold, sunny day junior year I was alone in my dorm room. I stripped down to my underwear, took a deep breath, and stepped onto the scale. It flickered a couple times then froze. 

110 lbs. 

20 years old and 110 pounds. It was the best day of my life. I felt high.

Fast forward nine years and I experienced a new “best day of my life.” It was the first time I did molly. A new kind of high.

This happiness blew the skinny 110 girl out of the water. It literally felt like happiness was filling up my insides and emanating from my body. I wanted to hug everyone and talk to everyone and really know them. Even though I wasn’t 110 pounds anymore, I somehow felt thin and confident and to my great relief - not hungry.

It would be another year before I took it again. I was newly single and had a group of LA friends who could easily source drugs. My one friend even had a test kit to make sure the molly was “good.” Which meant it tested for MDMA and not other things. Other things could be bad. Like heroine or I don’t even know. But to be perfectly honest, if it wasn’t “pure” I’d still throw it back and wait for whatever it was, hoping to feel the effects. Hoping I’d feel the happiness and love and skinniness.

For two years molly was my favorite drug. I enjoyed Adderall and I’d do cocaine if you had it, but molly was the girl at the party I desperately wanted to hang out with. 

Some of my friends did drugs in a healthy way… if doing drugs could ever be described as healthy. It wasn’t a big deal to them if we couldn’t get any. They were perfectly happy tossing back shots of Jameson. But if I had planned on doing molly and couldn’t get it my night was ruined. 

I loved molly so much that I started taking it more. Instead of twice a month it was twice a week. I knew it was too much because no one else was itching to do it as much as me. So if I decided to take it on a random Tuesday night when we were just going to the bar for drinks, I wouldn’t tell my friends. It would be my happy little secret. 

Of course I didn’t always get away with it. One time we were bowling and my girlfriend looked me in the eyes then grabbed me by the shoulders. “Bleeck, are you on drugs???” I sheepishly told her no in my most unconvincing voice with the biggest smile plastered on my face. Then I asked her how she knew. “Your pupils are the size of these bowling balls.”

Another time the drug started to hit AFTER the bar, while my girlfriend and I were getting pizza. 

When molly hits it’s called rolling. It feels like waves of endorphins coursing through your entire body. You can’t not smile. It feels so good. It feels like you have to either hold on to something to steady yourself, or dance and move with the waves, or sink into a couch with your arms around another body. 

But when you’re in a pizza shop with your girlfriend and she has no idea and you’re trying to keep it to yourself and pretend you have any interest in the huge pie she just ordered, it’s actually not as fun. Because it’s a secret. And you can’t share all the love in your body that you want to. 

It wasn’t until the end of a toxic relationship when I started to cut back on the drugs. I was in a dark place and realized I needed to work on my mental and physical health. This meant quitting my job, moving down to Long Beach, reading books, meditating, journaling, and taking long, cliched walks.

It was during this time that I met my husband-to-be at a week-long wedding in Mexico. Afterwards, he flew back to North Carolina and I flew back to California. 

After a month of speaking every single night on the phone, Sam came to visit me. 

I was 31 years old and about to have the next best day of my life.

I picked him up from the airport. I was so nervous. I worried it wouldn’t be as magical as it was in Mexico. I worried I wouldn’t feel as attracted to him in person as I did on the phone. 

I pulled up to the airport and there he was, in casual shorts and a T-shirt and clearly new, bright white sneakers. I threw my arms around him for a hug and my nerves melted away. When Sam thought the hug was over and tried to pull away I held on tighter. It felt so good. His body against mine made me feel less nervous.

That night, while we drank cocktails on the rooftop bar at The Huntley in Santa Monica, I kept saying to him, “I feel like I’m on drugs.” Because I felt SO HAPPY. As if I was on molly. 

But I had a new drug. It was Sam. 

The allure of molly faded away as I felt real love and real happiness. 

Also, Sam didn’t do drugs. I was so used to everyone around me being high that it felt normal, acceptable, easy, fun. Why would you not do drugs?

But I started to think less about the fun, party side of the experience and more about what I was using them for, which was an escape from my life.

I wanted so badly to feel happiness, but the “best days of my life” were all fabricated. None of them were real.  

Macaulay Culkin elaborates:

“A lot of times, when you’re having fun you’re rolling on MDMA or something. It doesn’t mean you’re happy. It just means you’re altered.”

I wasn’t happy when I weighed 110 pounds. I was desperately doing everything I could for that one thing. I lived in a lonely, obsessed place in my head and no one was allowed in. It was a sad existence. 

And I wasn’t happy when I was rolling. I did drugs because I was aching to feel happiness and I didn’t know how without the help of a chemical substance.

Meeting my husband was the first time I experienced true happiness since I was a little girl - back in the days when climbing trees and riding my bike around the neighborhood was all I needed. It wasn’t just because of the physical attraction and amazing sex, although that was a bonus. It was because I could tell him everything and not be judged and we could work through our issues together.  

I don’t regret doing drugs. Yes, it was stupid but it was also formative. It led me to exactly where I am right now, and where I am right now is waking up each morning and going to sleep each night happy. It’s not that extreme kind of happiness where it’s bursting from my body and I don’t know what to do with it. It’s a more content feeling. Stable. Relaxed. Safe. 

I haven’t had a “best day of my life” since that first day with Sam. Not our wedding day. Not the day our son was born. It’s because every day is really fucking good. There are no more extremes. Just a great life.