GHOST CANDLES

There is a powerful word that defines my early years, but let’s be clear: when I talk about adolescence, I’m not talking about that period of purity they sell us. I’m talking about real adolescence. The kind where you are dropped into the middle of the world, armed only with the survival mechanisms you forged as a child, in solitude and struggle.

Very quickly, through my choices and my relationships, I installed a vicious piece of machinery within myself: self-sabotage. It was a shield. Defense mechanisms dictated by the fear of failure, the terror of success, or simply the urge to hide before disappointment could even strike. In tandem, I began my first years of smoking cannabis. This toxic pairing was the opening of my own Pandora’s box.

The years passed, and my mind found a marvelous way to link these two escapes. I isolated myself from the world. The Quentin everyone knew—diligent, curious, the one who inspired others to push themselves—had simply vanished. I began to doubt my own pain. My inadequacy complex screamed at me: "What if I’m wallowing for nothing? Everyone else probably goes through just as much shit as I do, and they don't make such a pathetic spectacle of it."

So, I kept quiet. I decided that my words were worth nothing, that appearances, outfits, and forced smiles were more important than the hollow in my heart.

In the middle of this stagnation, I cut and ran for Paris. There, I found the freedom I had dreamed of so much, in a city of infinite streets—the perfect place for an imprisoned mind to break its chains.

I discovered the world of fine dining, which would become my profession for four years. I rediscovered what a real, tight-knit group of friends felt like, and I tasted love in all its forms. Everything seemed perfect.

But when a young man so fragile, starved of self-esteem, receives that much light all at once, the contrast is a shock. The mind cannot process it. How could I have gone from a slow fall to a calm place, filled with hope and plans? This happiness was unbearable to me.

Then, everything fractured. And when the mind breaks to that extent, self-sabotage stops and gives way to self-destruction.

Emotional suffering takes back control, and self-hatred spawns devastating behaviors. Substance abuse, self-harm, the deliberate destruction of all my social ties.... When it hits you, the pain is so sudden that it's a return to square one, but on extreme difficulty mode.

I lost an apartment, a job, and roughly five relationships in the span of a few days. The following morning, on the road to find a new refuge, I experienced the most violent introspection of my existence. To quiet my thoughts, I discovered painkillers and benzodiazepines. It was total denial. I no longer wanted to exist.

Three days later, I blew out my eighteen candles. They weren't even stuck in a cake.

I smoked, I slept, I drifted on medication to knock myself out, wake up, and go right back to sleep. Fortunately, I still had a console to anesthetize me for hours. I took refuge for a third time in Undertale, escaped into Apex online with my best friend, and wore out NBA 2K.

I hadn't imagined the year I turned eighteen would be like this. Winning everything and losing it all in a fraction of a second was new to me. Being stripped bare by life, when I had been wearing ten layers of protection just seconds before, taught me the cruelest and most beautiful of lessons: nothing will ever truly belong to us.

All we have left is to marvel at the ephemeral.