The middle is sometimes the easiest place to start. It leaves open spaces before and after and affords the luxury of ambiguity and not being bound by a set timeline. That was the dominant thought on my mind this morning as I took a large pull off of my e-pen and emotionally prepared for the long day ahead. Liberty Reach out of Washington makes a great Blue Dream oil that it is 70% THC. It’s a powerful Sativa hybrid which is great because I can use the heady clarity to set myself mentally and verbally straight before my meetings today. For some reason It is also a strain that immediately after each hit makes me sneeze and later slightly blocks my sinuses making me sound a little like Jeff Spicoli. Maybe it’s the terpenes, I’m not exactly sure. It is a small tradeoff and I can always play it off as allergies. “My sinuses have not been great since my wife and I moved here”; Insert benign Googled fact about allergies and changing altitude / climate here. The truth is without the high my day would be grueling and I would be on the exact same level as my coworkers, shitty, “ah-choo.”
I have two hours to soak up the cold from the Montage’s cozy 1000 thread count Egyptian cotton sheets. At eight sharp I have to be up out of the comfort of my comfortable company sponsored bed, and into a conference room full of Human Resources professionals. Today I am facilitating a workout for HR executives to help draft a purpose statement, set a project roadmap and timeline for the next 18 months, “ah-choo …… ah-choo.”
My life is driven by some one else’s timelines. Outlook invites, Gantt charts, and SIPOC diagrams box me in every single day. This has been the case for the past sixteen years. Today is no different and although I’m staying at beautiful luxury mountain resort and the weather is beautiful, I will be in a conference room all day ignorant to fragrant pine smells and cool mountain air right outside the giant wooden double doors. Today also does not differ in the way I begin my morning ritual; consuming copious amounts of THC to adequately get me through my work until lunch, or a even better, a cleverly planned clandestine break.
However, today I will deviate from my scripted patterns and expose a side of my life that until today has been hidden. Today I start sharing my undercover corporate stoner story starting from the middle, “ah-choo.”