It all started with “Harriet the Spy.” I was 7 years old when the film hit theaters, and as soon as I could get my hands on a VHS copy of it, I’d watch the movie, rewind it and watch it again.
I related to Harriet and her inherent tendency toward human observation — her compulsion to write everything down and make sense of what she witnessed by attempting to articulate it. She didn’t always get it right, and she often got herself in trouble. Her obsession, at times, knew no bounds. But that fire was something I couldn’t turn away from.
Flash-forward to the eighth grade. I had buck teeth, braces and an undiagnosed toothpaste allergy that left a crusty red rash around my lips. I was bullied — an outcast who wanted to manufacture a way to connect with others. I decided to go incognito and wrote a “Gossip Weekly” column and posted it in the girls’ restroom on Fridays before lunch.
I wrote about the hottest new couples, the buzziest breakups of the week, upcoming school dances and assemblies, and whether the sports teams had won or lost. The girls would crowd around the bathroom mirror where I’d taped it up, and I’d linger unnoticed in the area, thrilled to watch as people read my words. That’s when I first consciously knew I wanted to be a journalist.
Any academic or professional aspirations I’d flirted with throughout my life were sidelined in the aughts when the opioid epidemic wrought havoc on my community. Where I grew up, if you weren’t acquainted with or related to someone with an addiction, you were addicted. I moved to a shitty studio on Hollywood Boulevard and shot up heroin all day, and when I tried to envision my future, I saw a black hole.
I went to rehab, relapsed and then sought treatment again — a total of six stays in various rehabilitation facilities. In rehab, counselors ask you to look back on your life to make sense of how and why you wound up where you did. Everyone is given a notebook, and they instruct patients…
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