First Time High

I guess the first time I ever got high I must have been 12 - 13. I was at my best friend Wendy's house. Wendy was appealing because she was tall, thin, pretty and from Yuma, Arizona. Being from the States was just as exotic and foreign as being from Morocco or China in our pre pubescent minds, and to be her friend was to secure your place as someone who would grow to be cool, a leader by the time you hit cycle 2 (cycle 1 was grades 7-8, cycle 2 was 9-11 for all you non-Quebecers).

Wendy had this really young mother. Now at the time, I never thought about it much, in fact all I can remember is knowing how old she was, not making a judgment call or calculating how old she had been when she gave birth. Looking back, I would guess that she had to be 16 tops when Wendy was born. I remember thinking she was a "nice mom", meaning she didn't interfere with us, rented us restricted betamax movies, and sometimes let Wendy drive us around the neighborhood in the Jimmy.

She also introduced us to pot, and in a sense an understanding of men.

We had been sitting around in Wendy's room goofing off, talking about which of the 5 or so boys we crushed on regularly were our favorites that day, when Wendy's mom came to the door. She was there for all of about a minute, offering us a joint with the instruction "smoke this if you want" and a Playboy magazine with the advice "this is pretty much what men are about".

I don't remember getting high although we did smoke the joint (I'm betting we just did not know we should inhale), and we giggled as we flipped through the magazine, but the fact that this event is still to this day so clearly in my mind makes me wonder how much it really affected my view on the world. I've always loved men, but also always had a vague mistrust of their attentions. I've spent time worrying how my looks might attract men, and then resenting it when they do. I've dated passive non-confrontational men (even married one) and then wished I had something different. But can you trace adult behavior back to a single childhood event like that?