How To Make Your Whole World Smell Like A Dandelion (Plus: Not Being A Pillhead Anymore Is Confusing)

I don’t know what’s been going on with me lately – I’m wildly emotional and overwhelmed. I guess a lot of it has to do with my still relatively new “me-sobriety:” that’s a not-exactly-brilliant term that I use for my own personal abstinence from the drugs that have dominated my life for the past 13 years, primarily Adderall and other prescribed-for-ADHD stimulants like Dexedrine and Vyvanse.

And then on top of those, benzos (Xanax, Kolonopin, Valium), and about a zillion different kinds of painkillers. And sleeping pills -- Ambien, Lunesta, Sonata. Narcolepsy drugs that would keep me up for days: I was particularly fond of one called ... I forget. Who cares. All of them (well, almost all of them) were legitimately prescribed.

It’s pretty crazy what a manipulative addict with so little focus in other parts of her life is capable of scoring when her mind is set on it, and what our health care system enables her to do.

Ah, narcotic psychotropic drugs. A lot of people can take these medications and be fine on them -- I am not one of them. I’m a prescription speed freak and a doctor shopper -- someone who sneaks around from shrink to shrink scoring all different kinds of rx meds in the unhealthiest way, then gobbles them up like a little kid eats all his Halloween candy too fast. And then gets super, super sick. Ya dig?

(Also, FACT: I was such a pillhead that I started literally chewing the f-ing things like they WERE candy to make them work, I thought, faster! Do you even KNOW what a Xanax bar tastes like? I shudder just thinking about it. Addiction is some gruesome s**t!)

I have a lot more to say about that life that I led for so long in stories to come, but just know that I’m all good with using other drugs, personally, recreationally and I am open with everyone that that’s indeed what I still do. I’m a party girl: FACT.

But the difference between the drugs that I take for fun and those that I was addicted to is that I do my party drugs. I lived my prescription drugs. Though I don’t anymore. So I feel weirdly sober, because I’m not on pills 24/7 all of the time. And I’m just starting, for the first time in a long time, to feel.

It’s pretty overwhelming. I cry a lot, over dumb things. And it is what it is what it is! Life is so strange and wonderful and awful, it’s true.

But what in the hell does this have to do with dandelions? The other day I was -- as is my custom -- wandering aimlessly through the streets of downtown New York and stumbled across the beautiful street art above. I had the kookiest moment of realizing that I had forgotten that dandelions existed. When was the last time I'd seen one or blown on one and made a wish or anything?

I couldn't remember. Blame city living and definitely blame being a drug addict. You forget about the beauty of the world when you get lost in the blackness of it. Immediately, also, I wanted to cry, but EVERYTHING makes me cry these days!  I didn't, though. I fought it and won! Like a champ.

And sneakily here comes the beauty PRODUCT tie-in with all this mushy beauty-of-life stuff I'm rambling on about: There's a wonderful, wildly special indie beauty brand called CB I Hate Perfume. They're based in Brooklyn and they make the coolest fragrances ever -- just look at the list!

And my favorite name and concept of any of their scents has always been I am a Dandelion:

What a wonderful little bottle of joy to own, non? It smells like ... dandelions. You may think that you don't want to smell like a dandelion, but maybe you do. It's a dewy, fresh, dab-behind-your-ears kind of fragrance that wafts up ever-so-gently without ever overpowering anyone, which is good because we're all sensitive little souls and noses on this wacky and confusing big earth here.

And every time you do put it on, you get to make a wish. Life gets better and dreams do come true... It could happen to you. XO