mind altering experiences – The Mid Life Traveler

Fun Fact: I’m turning my blog into a podcast on Spotify and Apple!

To my tens and tens of readers, I am sorry. I have no excuse…well, kind of. First, I just had writer’s block, then I was lazy but then, in 2020, there was a little incident which put a hinder on my typing skills. I do have a voice texting program on my laptop but it seems I’m a more creative writer when I type than when I am speaking into the mic. So now it takes me twice as long to type up what’s going on in my head.

Since it’s been so long, I thought I would take the time this episode to do a quick recap of my past stories and then next week, begin back in 2003 where I left off. If you remember that’s when I decided to leave Tampa for Ft. Lauderdale chasing a dream job that would have me travelling all over the world with the rich and famous.

But first, who am I and why are all of about 35 people so interested in my stories????

In 1972 I was born in Gary, Indiana, about 10 blocks from the Jackson Five, but didn’t know it at the time. Back then Gary’s black community was growing larger than the rest of the races, but we never noticed. People were people, everyone was just trying to survive. My mother’s background is 65% Hispanic, which I didn’t notice either as a child, it’s a shame today how the media’s destroyed that innocence.

My father is a Marine who spent a few years in Vietnam before hooking up with my mom and popping out a couple of kids. PTSD wasn’t quite recognized and many of our Veteran’s weren’t cared for after returning home and suffered so much because of it. Families were torn apart, marriages dissolved, the Vet’s suffered alone which led to thousands of suicides. So when I was about three, my parents called it quits and mom was somehow able to move us out of Gary, where the crime rate was skyrocketing and over to the next town. She raised us three, on her own, as a waitress in the hood. Still amazes me how she did it!

Dad married Val a few years later and she was a great co-mom. Altogether, between the two families there were five of us kids. We would spend the weekends at Dad’s, which was super strict, military style with lots and lots and lots of chores. Dad had a big yard and we were always mowing, raking and bagging, felt like we were in prison. But us kids were terrified of my Dad, we got the belt, a lot and at the time I hated it, but now I’m grateful for the spankings. I’ve grown up to have an immense amount of respect for anyone in uniform as well as for humans in general.

Then during the week, we would be with Mom. She worked nights until one or two in the morning so us kids ran wild. My oldest sister had a kid when I was 10 who I babysat, by myself, all the time. I was the youngest of mom’s kids, but I would have to say the most responsible. Mom worked her ass off for very little money, so we didn’t have much but she always made sure we had what we needed.

Since I was unsupervised five days a week, my schoolwork suffered but not my social life. We would ride our bikes until all the other kids had to go home and then just keep on going. I also loved working at a young age, really young, around 9. Often, I would bus tables at the Mexican place mom worked, babysit in the neighborhood for $1 an hour, take odd jobs and then as soon as I turned 15, scored a job at the High School hot spot in town, McDonalds, right on the border of Gary and Merrillville.

Being that mom worked all the time and my co-mom was busy raising five of us on the weekends, I didn’t really have anyone to talk to about boys. Now, I was a huge tomboy myself, which meant boys were for beating up, playing sports, riding bikes with and playing in the woods, not kissing. (eeeww)

For those of you who aren’t aware, a tomboy is a young girl who likes to wear boy clothes and play all boy things. I wasn’t into dolls so much as I was shooting BB guns and building tree forts. I thank my lucky stars every day that I didn’t have some crazed lunatic convincing me that I should take hormone blockers and cut my tittie’s off before I even hit my teenage years. I remained a tomboy through most of my 20’s until I met a group of girls in Tampa who helped turn me back into a girl…I LOVE BEING A GIRL! Imagine if times were like they are now and I did alter my body to get rid of my girl parts, I would be pretty fucked up now.

Anyhoo, I digress! Growing up running the streets from a young age is a great way to learn responsibility, strength, courage, smarts, adventure and how to get away with EVERYTHING. People underestimate kids and how much they can handle when we are young. Problem was when it came to schoolwork, I couldn’t be bothered. I was happy making a C average with the occasional ‘A’ when it was a class, I enjoyed but only because I loved school activities. I played volleyball, basketball, football, lifted weights and was on the halftime dance team. Without those, the constant bullying and harassment on a daily basis for the last three years of High School would have been unbearable.

If you hadn’t guessed yet, I was not popular…why? Well turns out because I was a threat to all the popular girls who thought I wanted to steal their lame boyfriends. My freshman year I had a one-year boyfriend and then started dating a boy from our rival high school the first week of my sophomore year for two years. I spent so many Saturdays in detention just for defending myself. High School sucked but I never backed down from a fight. Between having a Marine, Vietnam Veteran Dad and an older brother and sister who would beat the crap out of me daily, I knew I could handle those bitches!!

So, this leaves me with college and my 20’s. You can go back and read all the juicy details for yourself but here’s just a teaser of what you will find:

Lots of bad decisions with boys.
Always broke, scraping the car seats for toll change.
A terrible drunk, terrible person which is why I weighed 140 pounds. (picture above)
Many jobs at once.
My experimental drug phase towards the end of my 20’s, that was awesome. Glad it only lasted a couple of years. Trying cannabis, extasy, all kinds of funds stuff for the first time.
Awful, awful boyfriend choices.
Moving a million times from NW Indiana all the way to Florida, typically always either following a guy or running from one.
Faking it till I’m making it.
Always being on my own, taking care of myself, never asking for help.
Crash and burn, hitting rock bottom.
Then somehow surviving it all without going homeless, growing up and steam rolling into my 30’s.

Which brings me back to where I left off in 2003 after just moving from Tampa to Fort Lauderdale to land a dream job working on the private jets. For a girl who’d never been out of the USA, putting me unsupervised in foreign countries for weeks at a time was risky, and I have the stories to prove it!!!

Can’t wait to tell you more…see you next week!

Carrie Lee – The Mid Life Traveler

It’s tough to remember the exact date, but I’m thinking it was near the end of 1998, I was 26 and had been living in Tampa for about a year drinking my face off celebrating the fact that I lived in such an amazing place. It was a long way from my home in Indiana and a huge leap from Augusta, Georgia. The sun never stops shining there and having a brand new VW Convertible made everything even sweeter. The weekends would include hitting the beach, boating or even laying in bed all day watching movies on one of the few rainy days we had. Friends were hard to come by, at least real ones. I was lucky to have 2 or 3 that I could count on but it would have been nice to have more.

You know from my past stories that a few years back while living in Orlando, I had smoked marijuana once and tried ecstasy once, which were both really great experiences, but neither held my interest. Luckily for me, I had never been addicted to anything, and to this day, that still stands, but after spending one weekend in St. Petersburg experimenting with mind altering tablets, everything changed.

My boyfriend at the time wasn’t a millionaire, but he definitely had money and he loved to spoil me with it. So after he convinced me to try those funny little pills again one weekend while beached on a sandbar, I couldn’t get enough. To this day I often wonder why, after my first experience with them I had no interest. Either way, he had the money to buy them and I was a ton of fun on them.

Now, my bestie Techie wanted nothing to do with this new crowd I was hanging with and he often tried to pull me away from them, but I was sucked in and didn’t want out. My weekends were spent awake, going from one afterhour’s party to the next, barely eating and always having a blast. If you’ve never experienced this type of party scene, it’s awesome and you will meet the most interesting people. I would be lying if I said stay away and never try it because for me, the mind altering experiences seemed to open up parts of my brain that had been closed off my whole life. I’m not telling you to go out and get stoned; I’m also not going to tell you that all drugs are all bad. Alcohol is much worse in my mind, but everyone does it and just because it’s legal, it’s ok. You have to make up your own mind about what you want to put into your body and how you handle it makes all the difference in the world. It’s tough so sit here and tell you about the bad things I’ve done in my life, really tough, and I’m sure some of you are going to judge me and that’s ok. Most of my bad choices have helped me and for that reason alone, I’m glad I made them.

After a few months, the boyfriend and I broke up but along the way I had met tons of cool people who knew how to get more and where the parties were. Eventually I dragged my bestie into all of this nonsense, but to this day, I believe the only reason he came along was because without the safety of having my ex boyfriend with me during the craziness, he needed to be there to protect me. To be honest, I can probably count on one hand the amount of times he ever seemed high. I swear he would carry around the same beer and just fill it with water pretending that he was participating.

During all of this, my job was going well with AT&T and they had just switched my shift from 11 to 7 so I could cover the West Coast. To me this meant that I could party even longer on Sunday nights…life was great but getting very expensive! By the time I cashed my check, it was already spent on bills, a ridiculous car payment, rent that was more than I could afford and now the infamous pills I loved so much. One by one, this small group of friends starting forming, we were like the cool kids in St. Elmo’s fire but the rated D version for ‘Druggie’s’.

1509 was the club where we would all meet; dance until they kicked us out and then the search for an afterhours spot would begin where we could continue to party until dawn and then some. Eventually we all found a place we could hang every weekend, far from the masses, located on a lake and with very few neighbors. This compound was owned by a husband and wife team who love to entertain, were hot, rich, fun and knew how to throw a party!! Pretty much everyone was coupled up but I was quickly accepted into the group as one of the only single girls and trusted by all the women.

Every weekend for around 2 years, this was my home, except when we decided to take our show on the road. I can’t even begin to explain to you how outlandish our parties were. The majority of them included costumes, DJ’s, nitris tanks with dresses, ate ups, bubbles, fantasies, balloons, feather boas, magic carpet rides, carnies, dunk tanks, lingerie, hotel rooms and so much more……you just had to be there. But overall, I met and am still friends with some of the greatest people you could know. Entrepreneurs, Scientists, Parents and Business Owner’s, all just people who want to escape from the real world and play around in Alice’s land for a while.

That’s why I mentioned earlier that people who experiment with illegal substances aren’t all bad, even the substances themselves are all bad, it’s how you use them. Unfortunately we lost a few friends along the way who didn’t know when to stop, but with anything in life, moderation is the key. Whether you eat too much sugar and develop diabetes or drink too much alcohol and crash your car, we are all human and allowed to make mistakes. Have fun and enjoy life, just try not to hurt yourself or anyone along the way.

Even though my Boogie Nights lifestyle only lasted 2 years, I have no regrets, not one! Well, I do have one, I neglected my doggie, Mr. Travis, even typing this right now, it brings tears to my eyes, but I made it up to him after I was done. For the last half of his life he lived like a King. Losing a few friends along the way also breaks my heart, my friend Noel, the sweetest soul with the biggest smile, somehow got too wrapped up in all the madness and lost his life; I think about him often and wish he was still here.

In the end, I walked away a better person, they don’t call them mind altering drugs for no reason, those pills unlocked the deep, dark sadness that had plagued me all those years and helped me to see who I really was, which was someone who needed to grow up and change for the better.

Eventually our group disbanded and most of us went our separate ways but I bet that majority of us have nothing but good thoughts about our time at Camp Pico and are happy to say that we dared to be different!! Maybe one day I will give you all of the juicy details of the after hours life, but for now just know that those days of experimenting with drugs are long gone and bittersweet!