This morning, I woke up earlier than I did all semester to unzip my tent and step out onto the dew-coated Memorial Glade. As my Birkenstocks touched the ground, a familiar, heavenly scent washed over me: kush. The devil’s lettuce. Jazz cabbage. Mary Jane, wacky tobacky, the za, whatever you want to call it. The point is, after 364 days of waiting, the best day of the year is finally here. April 20th – the glorious day when I can roll up before the sun rises without receiving any judgmental stares from my roommates. The one day a year when I can smoke weed all day, tell all my responsibilities to fuck off and get violently stoned. Sure, that didn’t stop me yesterday, or the day before, or the day before that. But on those days I had to suffer under the crippling weight of debilitating disappointment in myself. April 20th is a national holiday – it’s okay to indulge!
On 4/20, I don’t have to grapple with pesky thoughts like, ‘This is why your parents will never be proud of you’ or ‘My major doesn’t make any money.’ Instead, I can laugh for fifteen minutes because my friend showed me a video of a dog dancing on two legs. Chain-smoking on a frat guy’s dirty couch in broad daylight is no longer a cry for help: it’s a fun, social celebration of something we ALL do, just as much as the next person.