Those first few sunbreaks are spellbinding, flooded with hyper awareness. I see gold grass, clear diamonds. I smile, and smile again. I begin to realize that, like Lewis and Clark, I might need a compass, something to point me in the right direction. But when it comes to decrypting well-being, as opposed to a whole geographic region, there is little support.
So as the sun comes up in Edmonds, Washington, I lie on my hand-me-down mattress inspecting the quick, morning sun sparkling on my pill canteen. No matter what is happening in that room, I know my pills are watching me. The pills glare out of the bottle: a light-carrot orange, oblong, diamond capsule. Quickly put together, small and lightweight, with a panicky, smooth, plastic-like crust.
But there is something about the way the small orange beads are still, something scornful and knowing that tells me that somewhere below this restless sturdiness is a flaw as infinite as it is inflexible, like an ex-girlfriend’s hazardous rage.
Swiftly I turn to face the bottle, as though God’s hand came down to Earth and slapped me in the face, turning my life around. The house is blackening. The bottle stands on my nightstand at my service. I am terribly aware of the pills’ muscles, and of mine. I get up and walk over to the nightstand and stick my tongue out at it. I want to stand here, concealed and still. But then, far inside, I feel the chemical bond of amphetamines scrambling to help improve my well-being, gushing to unclutter the gates of the synthetically built empire and let the noble archduke of delight come in.
I feel aimless, like a ball, bouncing and bouncing, and I begin to wonder where I’ll land: Somewhere in the Adderall Empire.
All the years of being the kid who parents told their sons and daughters not to hang out with—all those times I embarrassed my family and myself—were over. My main fear was that I would end up in jail or become that crazy guy everyone avoids in town. So when those cops took the handcuffs off me during my freshman year of high school, my parents got me some assistance.
My life changed when I was diagnosed with ADHD. I was prescribed Adderall and entered the Adderall Empire.