A long time ago I did mushrooms in the woods with someone I considered a close friend. My preparation was minimal, my awareness of what I was getting into was less so. I am unfortunately the sort of person to ask fewer questions than I should when a pretty person is involved.

First, let's talk about what a psychedelic drug does. It alters brain chemistry, and part of what it does is similar to marijuana, so it can relax you. But it also messes with the parts of your brain that regulate your abstract thinking and thought analysis. I've read somewhere that it activates parts of your brain that are generally most active when you're dreaming. It's considered a hallucinogen.

Now, keep in mind I didn't know any of that. I merely had the words of my friend, themselves a neuroscience undergrad at the time who stated that I would feel a "oneness" with the universe.

I think it's important to keep in mind that while I have always tried to adopt a confident demeanor, there was quite a bit of masking involved, but I knew very little about neurodivergence or the coping mechanisms that can naturally develop. I'm not sure about others, but there is a complex set of abstractions and actualizations in me that are as complex as any skyscraper.

So imagine my surprise when suddenly the bottom fell out of my world.

More experienced users would tell you that if you're hiding anything from the world or yourself, it's coming out. Whether you know it's there or not. I was filled with terror as I could no longer understand my own thought processes or control them.

There were a lot of things that came and went through my mind and soul that night. There were things that occurred that left wounds on me, but moreso there were wounds deep inside of me I had built a foundation on that suddenly came up to bare their teeth.

I'd close my eyes and I'd see these perfectly round circles of color, and hear that cliche hippie chord that generally attends such displays in media. I'd think about the future, and I saw a thousand timelines play out in front of me. I saw every single person I loved decay to nothing and die. I saw people I didn't know yet, people I would never know, people who probably don't exist. I could not longer tell the difference between the past, the present, and the future.

I saw the universe decaying. It would take everything from me.

When I was a young kid, my Dad told me that sooner or later, everyone had to fight their dragons. That I'd understand when I was older. And while the metaphor wasn't lost on me, it came to life rather literally before my eyes.

As I raged against the stars, demanding fair treatment for a lifetime of disappointment, they came to life and formed themselves into a dragon, a cosmic dragon made of stars and space as big as the universe itself, larger than anything I thought I could imagine.

And its jaws stretched wide to come down and consume me. It brought the death of everyone I loved. I saw my parents and my lovers and my friends rot to dust before my eyes. I saw myself as a child, as a navy officer, as a husband, as a father, as the president, as a loser, as an old man sitting by the ocean, as anyone I wanted to be and it all ended the same way. Rot and dust.

I screamed at the dragon and demanded more, but it asked me what more there could possibly be. And that's when I realized the truth of it: there wasn't a big difference between all these futures. Some were sadder than others, but ultimately they all had their happinesses and triumphs. They had their losses and their frustrations.

The very concept of entropy looked me in the eye and I knew its secret then and there. I could lay there and cry but instead- I went at it. Wearing my lizard kigu. Throwing down with the very concept of entropy itself.

It was a draw.

I helped someone overcome some suffering. I swing danced with my friend late into the darkness. I cried into some rando hippie's lap as the sun rose. It was a night that lasted a thousand years.

And ultimately I'm pretty sure it brought some serious PTSD to the surface. Not a surprise that it would be there to anyone who'd ever listened to even a couple of my stories, but it was a great surprise to me as someone who had thought that you could simply stoically power through and bury every problem in your past.

That was over a decade ago now. My deep fear of death and mediocrity has become little more than a concern about leaving things unfinished now. My dragons are of the more mundane variety now, and I've been facing them more up close and personal than usual for the past week.

When I went to Cedar Point, I found my terror quickly absent from my body, trust placed in the universe (and the engineering of a major theme park in a highly litigious culture). And since that time, I've been facing some of my deepest insecurities and finding myself face to face with disappointments that I have let come to define so much of my life.

But I look and I'm not there alone anymore. Not like I was on that night so long ago.

Except I see now I wasn't alone that night either. I was the one who retreated, the one who let my own terror define my life. Fear's been a pretty big part of my life. And ultimately I had people I knew and didn't know come out and be there with me to dance in the dark for a moment or two. What else can anyone do?

Fear is trying to help. I let it be my friend, and I listen to its advice and make my own decision.

So here I am at the top of the summer and I feel at my strongest and it probably can't last forever, but like, those are just words. The things that make me strong and weak are the same things.

The things I love in me are the same things that disgust me. I'm seeing myself as a whole for the first time ever and I'm just

I'm just Jacob.

I'm ready for what's next.