Grade 12. Man, I couldnt wait to leave this place. I was getting sick of school. I wanted to concentrate on music and school was getting in the way. I felt real focused on it now. Writing songs and lyrics and practicing the guitar, practicing with the band, practicing singing. Sometimes, not all the time, but sometimes playing music totally took me out of my life and I felt above it, beyond it, happy.
Happy wasnt something I really felt all that often. By now I was getting resigned to that. I mean, there had been a lot of shit to deal with. My mom dying and my dad and all that. The mental illness. I still wasnt all that used to it. Taking meds everyday sucked. Getting reminded to take the meds everyday sucked, too. I could see where Joey was coming from, after all the screwed up crap from last year. And he was right. I had to stay on the meds or Id lose it again.
Ashley was gone and that was okay. It had to be. I wasnt going to bother with girls, not now. I needed a break from them. They made things too complicated. I really had wanted to marry Ashley. That wasnt some bipolar induced craziness. But Ashley thought it was. I wish I could tell her that it wasnt the bipolar, it was me. She wouldnt get it, though. People see what they want to see. They believe what they want to believe. So this year its all about the music. Period.
School was slipping, though. I knew it wasnt where I was going. I wasnt going to be a surgeon like my dad was. Jesus, he lived in school. College, post graduate, medical school. I couldnt do that. I wasnt anything like him. In therapy sessions and stuff like that its been brought up that maybe my dad was bipolar, too. That would explain the mood swings and the violence. But if he was bipolar and he went to medical school and he became this top surgeon, all with a mental illness? I mean, that was unbelievable. I was trying to forgive him. I tried to put myself in his place, having a kid and having a mental illness and feeling stress and then, well, you know. And I did know. Like with Joey. I didnt mean to beat up Joey, I never meant to do that. I was so sorry. So I could kind of see a little more where my dad was coming from.
The meds made things even. I didnt always like it. I felt like I couldnt think sometimes. But I needed to be on these stupid meds or things would get crazy. The fast thoughts streaking by like meteors. All the ideas jumbling up on top of each other. Not sleeping. Hardly eating. Everything going at a thousand miles per hour. It was fun at first. It felt good. But then it got scary. And I didnt trust myself to handle it, I knew I couldnt handle it.
So I was just focusing on the music, getting lost in the words and the melodies and the harmonies, and when it all came together just right I could forget about all the shit. The meds and Joey worrying all the time and Ashley off with some guy in England and Ellie flirting with me all the time and the drudgery of school and my past. All of it would just fade to this meaningless pastel color, soft and barely there.