Date: The Most Wonderful Time of the Year
Dosage: 10mg
Form: Soft Gels
Result: Fuzziness of holiday spirit. Zoom fatigue.
The days grow shorter and shorter. The sun barely and briefly has a chance to peek out behind the grey clouds before it disappears behind the neighbour’s house. Vitamin D levels are at an all-time low.
As the solstice draws nearer, the hours of days align conversely with the quantity of baked goods I allow myself to consume in a day. It’s regular to start the day with a plate of cookies, right?
But as the flavours of gingerbread or holiday spice enter into every food imaginable, the sugar high does little to dissuade my stress.
Pre-vacation work deadlines are compounding upon one another. My regular holiday stress this year has earned a fun new layer with Covid anxiety. Is it cancelled? Is it postponed? Am I asymptomatic? Financial stress about the holidays is both minimized and made all the more important by the whole “is the earth ending?” mental tangent.
“Buy the thing,” my inner voice tells me, “there will be no currency in the new world order.”
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Since my box of wine has run dry, I sneak a couple of weed capsules left behind by a friend in an attempt to unwind. The evening’s activities are light. Trim a tree and join a zoom call for a friend’s birthday — the perfect setting for a little sprinkling of THC.
I pop the pills and feel no effects for over an hour. The tree is brought in and put up (mostly) straight. The lights are hung with (somewhat) ease. I am zen personified. I feel like nothing is happening. Until I realize I’ve been staring at the light for five minutes — and the lights aren’t even on.
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“Wow,” I think as I stroke the fine needles, a bit of sap sticking to my fingers. “Trees are weird.” And then I sniff them.
THC makes me tactile. It dials sensation up to 11, but my sight feels fuzzy. Like vaseline on a camera lens. Like a soap opera. I, too, become a little soap opera-diva in tandem. Dropping “darlings” and moving my head to meet with an imaginary camera, like the opening credits are playing.
By the time I log into the birthday call, my head gets heavy. Full of sand. Another sensation. When I pivot my head to meet my mark, laugh or look sultry, there is a lag in motion. The impulse to move to precede the actual movement by a beat or two.
I am buffering in real life.
I video chat on various platforms at least 10 times a week, whether for work or my new social life. But doing so a little high feels overwhelming. When I first log on, I don’t know anyone super well. Instinctively I feign connectivity issues and turn my camera off waiting till more familiar faces join. But, I’m not as good an actor as I thought, because I’m soon bombarded in the chat function with demands to turn on my camera. I’m convinced but have been labelled the wallflower. The conversation turns to me, but I can hardly keep up. I’m slower. My wit abandons me. I become less verbal. The answer to questions are distilled down to a shrug.
Finally, my friend logs on, but it coincides with the heaviness of my head concentrating on my eyelids when they do. I can hardly focus. Can hardly keep my eyes open. Something more appealing calls.
With the tree lit and my guard down and social obligation virtually abandoned, I decide to lay on the floor and look up through the tree at the Christmas lights. Not since childhood has the waves of peace washing over me feel so great. There, with my senses heightened and inhibitions lowered, the beauty of the up-above is made so apparent from down below.
‘Til next time,
The (Cannabis) Virgin
Wait! Did you miss the first entry in The (Cannabis) Virgin Diaries? It’s all about a bike crash and unrequited love…
