Content Warning: addiction/overdose

As the year ends, everyone looks back and reflects. Most people set new goals, and say, "wow I can't believe it's been a whole year." As true as that is for me, I find that some dates hold more importance for me than the change of date from December 30th to January 1st.

One of these days is December 18th. It's really one of the only dates I know to watch, to be aware of, and to take note of. I generally try to keep track of specific days, but its really hard. Even my anniversary with my boyfriend is kind of a guessing game; A few months after becoming official, we picked a date that seemed the closest to the actual day. (Not any less romantic, in my opinion; the importance is in celebrating our relationship, not in how correct the day is.)

December 18th has a number of meanings for me. We'll start from the beginning.

On December 18th, 2012, my best friend's mother overdosed. This wasn't the first time she had overdosed, but this time, she didn't get to hold her daughter again. I was unaware of the concept of addiction until this time, and until a long time afterwards. I knew all the facts, but knowing and understanding are such different concepts. I was struck. I remember my best friend texting me, and me not really believing her. Because I didn't want to.

Me and my friend met in 4th grade. We fought every day, pretty much until graduation in high school. We had a rough friendship, but we understood each other, and we stuck by each other. Of course, we made mistakes, but I always knew that she loved me, and she would stick by me, and I stuck up for her, even in our dark days. We needed each other, even when we weren't friends. She really is my best and oldest friend.

Everyone has problems. But she always showed me how to make the best of everything. I can't necessarily say that she was always happy, or that she always kept her head up. But she always showed up. She always came to school, hoping for a hug, and she always did her absolute best, and that is so much more than anyone else at our school. Even when she was at her worst, I always thought she was worth more than everyone else at that school, because she was real. Me and her were the girls with problems, and that was ok, because in reality, we were more put together than most people around us. People just perceived us as otherwise. But that was their problem.

On December 18th, her mother passed away. I don't remember the first time I saw her after that, I think it was just too surreal. I remember talking to her on the phone, I remember telling her that everything would be ok, because we had been through hell. I told her that we had already been through hell, and made it out the other side, still with each other, and if that wasn't hell, then we could get through this too.

For the next few days after her mother's passing, I started smoking cigarettes with her. We'd sit in her car and smoke whatever would produce smoke, and talk. She would never cry, but I would just listen. I don't remember specifics about our conversations, just that we sat in my car in a tennis court parking lot and smoked cigarettes.

Six years previous, cigarette smoking had killed my grandparents on my mother's side. I always swore that I would never smoke cigarettes, and that I hated the taste (which I did). I still, to this day, hate losing my grandparents to smoking. My grandmother died of pneumonia rather suddenly, and my grandfather died 6 months after her of a heart attack. Both smoked for the majority of their lifetime, and as a young child, I associated the scent of cigarettes with my grandparents. I thought it homey and welcoming, because it reminded me of Whit and Nancy.

So, I started smoking, after saying for so long that I wouldn't. (I made this promise when I was 12, and I also said I wouldn't drink, or smoke weed, but..) I didn't feel bad about this while I started, it was just another way to pass the time. I smoked through my graduation in 2013, through my first 2 and 1/2 years of college. And then I quit, on December 18th, 2015. I remember sitting in my car, and remembering the date, and then a few minutes later, thinking that I didn't want to smoke anymore.

I smoked for a steady 2 and a half years. I smoked enough that I gave myself asthma, and I allowed myself to alter my lifestyle to fit an extremely unhealthy habit. Of course, the way I quit was rather abrupt, and in a way, easy for me. Because nobody can quit anything unless they really want to. But it did take me multiple tries and a few years to actually let go and quit. But I did it, and it has been a year since I have smoked a cigarette, after spending ungodly amounts of money on the habit, after giving myself asthma, after getting myself sick. I quit smoking, and I have gone a year without smoking cigarettes.

Everyone has baggage, everyone has bad habits, and everyone pays for them. Some pay the ultimate price. My experience in my senior year taught me so much about addiction. I would have had no understanding of addiction otherwise. Most people who are haunted with addiction cannot help it. They have families, and loved ones, and partners, and friends, and lives. Full, healthy lives. They live their lives the way they are best fit to. And they are people. People who are also, in turn, loved. And this woman, who was so cherished, and so cared for, overdosed, and her addiction took her. And without this, I would have no understanding of what that meant, and who 'addicts' were. And I still don't. Sometimes, I don't understand this concept fully. But without her, I would absolutely be ignorant of it.

I can't say that everything happens for a reason. There is absolutely no reason or positive side to my best friend losing her mother. I would give absolutely anything to give her her mother back. Through all my friend's pain, I am more proud of her than anyone else who graduated at our high school.

It's funny, and slightly unnerving, how parts of life connect in weird ways.