90 is the New 100

I had a really startling thought today that I thought I'd share with the world. Well, I've actually been thinking about this for a while now but today it just seems clear. I thought back to the days of high school, when I would look at my drunk classmates wondering why in the hell they were drunk and I saw the weed smokers outside and wondered why they would smoke weed and then go to class. But then I came here and my outlook changed. I started experimenting with different things and am now beginning to learn my limits, what I can take, and when to say "no".

But now something has entered my mind. I wonder: once you have gotten drunk so many times, once you have smoked so many blunts, do you ever reach a stage where you are at your full 100% potential? For instance, how many days after you smoke do you go back to normal? I think of life before I drank and before I smoked and I wonder if I could ever go back to feeling the way I did back then. I used to feel so innocent, so pure. The most harmful substance I put in my body was sugar. But now I'm drinking energy drinks to study (something I would have never done before) and jager and bacardi and even beer, which is a liquid I had always sworn I wouldn't drink. And when I smoke, the few times I have smoked, I always can't wait for the high to end because I completely lose control of my senses.

One of my biggest fears was walking around high and somebody being able to tell that I was high. It's not really a fear, but I didn't want people to look at me sideways the same way I did to people who smoked before I did it. But here, in college, it seems that nobody even cares what you do, and if you are high or drunk, chances are they are too so it doesn't matter either way it goes.

When I say is 90 the new 100, I wonder if my 100% days are long over, the days before the energy drinks and alcohol and weed? I wonder if I can ever go back to the good old concentration and focus that I used to exercise so much before I came to college. What happened to my need to go to every class? I kept saying at the beginning of the semester that things were going to change. And I'm not gonna lie, I started out strong. It appeared that I was going to absolutely OWN my classes this semester. BUt something happened. The cold mornings I spent snuggled in my boyfriends arms, the nights I'd drink instead of studying, the afternoons I would smoke and go to sleep rather than writing that paper happened. The good times, the bad times, the arguments, the make-ups happened. Living in the dorms, then basically living at the frat house happened. And all of a sudden, I got swept up in the mayhem and now here I am, three days before my first final, stressing because I don't know where the time went.

No more promises to do better after this next week. Promises are not enough, even when they are simply promises to myself. We'll just have to see how things turn out.