Skip to main content

Despair

These are random thoughts that are going through my mind as I stare at the computer, or the piano, or the book I'm trying to read, and getting nothing done:

  • I want to die.
  • I don't want to eat anymore.
  • I hate everyone.
  • I hope I get killed in a car accident.
  • I don't want to do this anymore.
  • I'm stuck.
  • I'm in a wilderness -- not a lovely, wild one, but a scary, threatening one.
  • Will this nightmare ever end?
  • I am so angry.

It's not just my dad dying. It's everything.

Piano Helps, But ...

Piano, and music in general, have been wonderful, but they've been, in many ways, an escape. I was suicidal when I joined PWJ last January, and I was able to seize on this wonderful resource. My piano-playing is better than ever, and I love practicing. But when I'm not practicing?

I don't want to think. I don't want to read or write because that will cause me to think. And if I let myself think, I fall even further into despair. So I listen to music. Lots and lots of blues, but also gospel blues and bluesy rock. And the music fills my brain so that I don't have to think.

Or if I do think, I'm listening for chord changes and riffs. I'm listening for ideas of what I can do in my own playing.

Not that I'll ever play for anyone but myself and my headphones.

All Wrong

Life has just turned out all wrong, and I am not sure where I went wrong.

No, that's not true. I can point to all the places I went wrong--all the bad decisions, all the major decisions made on an impulse, all the other major decisions made from a place of despair.

It's as if despair and depression have been my constant companion for so much of my life, eating away at what should be joy and peace.

And here I am. I feel like all I have is piano. Prayer feels empty. Exercise is mindless. Reading and writing are off-limits. I have lots of acquaintances that I like, but they are all context-dependent -- my volleyball mom friends, my church friends, my neighborhood friends. But none of them are close friends. I live in this private, silent, lonely hell. And now my daddy is gone and I don't know what to do. Though I am glad I still have my mom -- I stayed with her for the whole time my dad was dying, and I didn't want to leave her, even after he was gone.

I guess I'll just keep practicing.

Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Rethinking Bare Necessities

Today's breakthrough moment (there are actually two of them) focuses on "Bare Necessities." As you'll remember, I discovered Jonny May's arrangement back in early March and immediately decided to learn it. I printed out the music, started the course, and proceeded to learn the stride section, posting a few videos of my progress. Ha. I bet those videos make it look like I was making progress. I guess I was ... but not really. And I realized something this weekend that I hadn't before: Because I was thinking of "Bare Necessities" as a "fun" piece, I wasn't practicing it seriously or diligently. I wasn't treating it as something I wanted to master. This mindset might work with an easier piece, but this arrangement isn't easy. The result: despite a little progress at the outset, I wasn't moving forward. I was stalled. Breakthrough #1 The first breakthrough was realizing that if I truly want to learn this piece and play it well,...
Post a Comment
Read more

March Goals Recap/Looking Ahead to April

It's April 1, and time to revisit the goals I set for last month. I practiced a total of 50.45 hours in March, averaging 1.62 hours (or just over an hour and a half) per day. Realistically, I practice about 45 minutes to an hour a day on weekdays, and I usually get at least one longer practice (or multiple shorter practices) in on one or both days of the weekend to bring the average up. CLASSICAL GOALS Chopin, F Minor Nocturne March Goal: Have entire piece by memory and performance-ready. I have about 90% of the piece by memory, but I still have some work to do before it's performance-ready. The only two sections that I don't quite have are "The Agitation" and the "stretto" section with the seventh chords. I'll work on both this week and will have them both memorized before the weekend. April Goal: Finish memorizing, and polish, polish, polish! My focus now is really on phrasing and dynamics. I have the notes down, even in the difficult passages. Fro...
Post a Comment
Read more

Maple Leaf Rag Breakthrough

Oh, Maple Leaf. Where to begin? At the Beginning I think I’ve mentioned this before, but I learned the A and B sections of Maple Leaf Rag back in the 1990s. I can’t tell you if it was early, mid- or late 90s, but it was during those 10 years after I’d graduated college, when I was playing a good bit of piano but not taking regular lessons from anyone. I don’t remember teaching it to myself at all. I just know that, at some point, the first half of Maple Leaf Rag was part of my two- or three-song repertoire of pieces I’d be able to play by memory over the next 25 years. It was always sloppy and I knew it, but people loved it, and so I played it if there was ever a piano around. Back in January, I decided to properly re-learn those two sections, and to finally learn the C and D sections of this wonderful piece. I worked on these over the next month or two, learning (and-relearning) the notes pretty quickly ... but it took time to memorize, and also to get everything to tempo surpassing a...
Post a Comment
Read more