Meth and Kickball

So recently I learned through a friend that someone I went to high school with was arrested for meth. The friend wasn't really sure whether he was using, dealing, or had a lab in his basement, but I was told it was pretty serious. I wasn't that shocked; I mean, I was saddened because in a way it reflects poorly on my hometown, but people can easily become chemically dependant. I asked who it was, assuming it would be someone I had heard of distantly, but had not really ever spoken to. The shock came when I learned it was a relatively popular person - one I had known since elementary school.

When I say I knew him, truthfully we probably wouldn't have recognized each other, and I guarantee we wouldn't have spoken to each other if we had. We ran in different circles, (I went to very large schools) and hadn't had a class together - that I can recall - since sixth grade. We didn't dislike each other; we never really ever spoke or interacted at all really.

That's when I remembered, I thought he was so cool in sixth grade. He had this jacket that I wanted, and I remember being jealous of his clothes. And the last real interaction I had with him was a class game of kickball in the gym. (He may or may not have been wearing that cool jacket; the memories are colored with the rose tint of time.) I wasn't terrible at kickball, but he was really good - I do remember that. If I remember correctly, he was the "pitcher" and I "fouled-out" rather early on (again, rose tints). If you don't know what kickball is, it's basically baseball, but players use their legs as bats and a generic inflatable ball. Basically it's like if soccer and baseball had a love child that ended up resembling baseball more so than soccer.

So, I googled the whole situation to see if I could learn something about what had happened. What I discovered was shocking. There is another person with the same name (spelled slightly different) busted for meth and cocaine - same age as the guy I went to school with - but completely different ethnicity. Unless the guy I knew had a white-ectomy and a heavy dose of melanin, I doubt it was him. Now there could be two people - with the same name and age - dabbling in meth in my hometown at the same time; it would be highly improbable, but it could happen. Until I hear otherwise, however, I'm going to assume it wasn't the person I knew from school, and this whole case has turned out to be one of mistaken identity.

Yet, the discovery didn't stop me from thinking that somewhere, this new person - this new meth addict - had played kickball before too. That somewhere, there could be people at home on their computers trying to figure out the details of his descent into chemical addiction. That somewhere, people were just as shocked as I was to discover an acquaintance had succumb to crystal-meth. After all, he too was a sixth grader once. He could have been a sixth grader with a cool jacket. He could have been a sixth grader who played kickball with his classmates. Somewhere, someone was just like me, researching him. (How ironic would it be if our names were the same only spelled one-letter differently?)

So the next time you hear that a person has fallen into chemical abuse and dependancy, think before you judge. That person was once a little kid - playing kickball. How does a sixth grader playing kickball grow up into a meth-addict? That's what we should be asking.