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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.

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