Broken Wings

marchingbandconfessions:

Marching band is my life. Everyone in it is like my sibling. Band is my home away from home and I would not have it any other way. I love it, and everyone in it.

I’m on an up swing right now. That’s how this works. Everything goes great, you feel fine, it’s looking up, and then it’s a downhill descent from that point until you claw your way back up again. 

How much of this roller coaster ride can a person take before they crack? I’m not too sure. But I’m addicted to the happiness, so I keep getting back up, praying to prolong the moment before I crash.

Drumline makes me happy. Not sure why, but it does. I came in a tie in my seating test, so even though I’m second chair I know I’m even with first, and I’m the one who knows how to play piccolo, so I get to play it. Band makes me happy, and right now I’m succeeding. 

Here’s one of my quirks, though.

I never feel pretty. I mean, I know I could totally be uglier, but I just don’t feel pretty. 

But when I’m in my Band uniform, I feel like the sexiest person on the planet.

Doesn’t matter if it’s my concert attire, my Marching Band bibber-I feel beautiful. Sometimes I get that feeling just by wearing the fucking t-shirt. I look around myself and say, ‘I’m one of these amazing people.’

Everyone’s complaining about the Drumline uniforms this year, which are supposed to be these skin-tight, under-armor suits. But secretly, I’m excited. I know it’s weird, but I really don’t care. I’m going to don that uniform with pride and confidence, and play my heart out on a fucking cymbal.

And it really doesn’t get any better than that.

Submission: Drumline

So, I found your blog by searching the keyword drumline and stumbled upon your post about auditioning for the auxiliary spot (better known to us drum corps folk as the “rack” spot) and I thought you should hear something.  

When I marched my first summer of Blue Stars in 2010, the rack player was an awesome dude.  And he loved everything about his spot.  He had such a fluidity in the way he struck everything that it was literally like the icing on the cake.  He came back wanting to play rack again in 2011, and he did.  He has also played one of the rack parts for MCM for the past couple years.  I think it’s awesome to have someone who wants to do that.  You learn so much about percussion as a whole (which is really important to me seeing as I’m almost finished with my bachelor’s degree in music education as a percussionist.)  You will grow into an even more amazing musician by having this experience, I promise.  Also, if you’re not sure what to do with yourself, start thinking about trying out for a rack spot for a drum corps.  It’s an amazing experience and with the attitude you seem to have, I bet you’d be great at it.

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Thank you for that, it’s very kind of you. 

I’ve only been in Drumline for a few months, but I have learned a lot about music. Listening to the Marimbas play their part over and over in sectionals, and then the vibes, then listening to it together, and then adding the aux part into it; it helps you see how it all fits together, the inner cogworks of the music’s beauty. Something about it is just so fantastic, I don’t know what but…it just is. Everyone kept telling me aux was the worst, don’t do it, but I’m really not sure I’d want to play anything else, even if I did know how. 

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Deployed

You’re probably not going to believe this, but I’m not an emotional person. Not the person everyone else knows. Here, on the internet? I bawl over angsty fic, use rage memes, the whole 9 yards. I guess if you meshed the two together, overtly emotional and completely blank, you’d have the real me, the one only I ever see. On the outside, I couldn’t give a shit, but on the inside, some shit bothers me and other shit doesn’t.

My dad has been deployed a lot. He’s had 26 years in the Marine Corps, so it’s not too surprising.

But he’d never been deployed while I’ve been alive. At least, not until a couple of years ago. 

It was a really emotional time for me. Not that anyone ever saw it. 

I cried myself to sleep once. Just once. The night they told me he was going to be gone in a couple of months, and that was it. One night of completely uncontrollable tears and I was done. 

I spent that night alone.

After that, he was just gone. He wasn’t in my life anymore, and I didn’t think about it. Blocked it from my memory, shoved it into a corner of my mind. I laughed at his jokes over the phone about the rocket attacks from terrorists as he tried to lighten the mood, took the story about the man whose thumb had been lobbed off when he hadn’t hit the deck fast enough with a politely curious expression. I didn’t ask how many soldiers he had sent back in caskets, didn’t ask how the Naval officer they’d had to send home after a breakdown was, didn’t let myself wonder about the poison sand he was breathing. It was just another part of my life, one I didn’t talk or think about. 

I realize now that’s probably not healthy, but what was I to do? My mom was a wreck, and I think I resented her for it. Because, being truthful here, I don’t ever want to be her. Not ever, not in the slightest. I don’t want her life.

So when I didn’t talk about my dad, refused to think about him for the year he was stuck in that hellhole, I think it was because I didn’t want anything to do with her. And if she was a mess, why would I want to be her?  

Band Forever

Marching Band ended. At first, it didn’t quite dawn on me. Band forever, right? At least, that’s what everyone kept chanting. Over time, I started to believe it.

How do you continue when the one thing holding you up, even if you don’t notice it at the time, ends? Sure, Marching Band would be back, but it wasn’t too soon after it ended that I realize I was in some deep shit.

Why? You may ask. Well, practice got me out of the house. I stayed at the school from 6:30 AM to 6:00 PM, no joke. Suddenly I wasn’t in that oppressive environment anymore, and I came out of the funk I had been in during the summer.

But now that was gone. I started coming home. And I hated it. The band room was a mess-let’s face it, they all are-but it was comforting and I loved it there. That was my home, and to be honest, it still is. 

So what to do? I didn’t want to play a sport, I still don’t. I’ve tried and I just don’t feel as passionate for any sport as I do Band. How could I put my heart into something the way I had put it into marching band, knowing that the only people who would ever understand me and the commitment level to which I held myself were in band? I couldn’t join a sport, I wouldn’t, but I had to do something.

I’m not trying to diminish the value of sports, but I know that marching band is the hardest thing I have ever done. I’ve played soccer, softball, basketball, track and field, swimming-you name it, I have played it. All of them were fun and slightly challenging, but nothing compares to playing an instrument and running around a field for seven minutes precisely in-time with 72 other people. Nothing. Not for me.

Anyway, I decided to join Drumline. I had to do something with music, I just had to. I didn’t have the heart for anything else. 

I auditioned for auxiliary.

Who the hell does that?!

Let me explain. Drumline consists of the marching drums, like the snares, bass’, and quads, marching cymbals, and the pit. The pit has marimbas, vibes, glock, xylophone, bass guitar, piano (synth) and auxiliary. Auxiliary is basically all the random noises in the background of a piece, such as the gong, mounted bass drum, suspended cymbal, triangle, rainstick, chimes, tamborine, etc. You get the picture.

Now I repeat, who the hell auditions for auxiliary? Who wants to play all that boring shit?

Me. I did. Because I couldn’t face going home everyday. Drumline gave me the same hours as Marching Band, the same kids, the same band room. It was perfect. So I did it. I’m in Drumline, and I play aux. 

Is that healthy? Probably not. But you know what?

I don’t think I care. Because it makes me happy, and you know what? I’m finding it harder and harder to be happy.

Healthy Food

I haven’t been diagnosed with depression. I don’t think it would matter if I was or if I wasn’t-I feel the way I feel and no asshat doctor is going to tell me otherwise.

I’ve been around enough doctors with my brother to know that most of them are complete turds. You’re telling me he’s not autistic? Screw you. He’s not normal, and that’s okay. He’s my brother and I love him, and I think living with him all my life makes my opinion of whether or not he’s autistic more valuable than yours.

Anyway, I don’t think it would matter. I recognize the signs. I think my mom does too, but she’s too wrapped up in her own shit to do anything about it. We both know I would protest anyway, citing that she’s in no position to judge whether or not I need help. We’d fight, I’d win and lose at the same time, and no one would feel any better about the situation.

My house is cluttered. Everywhere you look there’s stuff. Just stuff. I try my best to keep my room clutter-free, and for the most part it works. But I think the atmosphere of the house is weighing down my subconsciousness, because I can never focus. Not at home.

I get angry, sad, tired, all at once in that damn house. It’s my mom’s fault too, though she never admits to it being her shit everywhere. She blames my brother, my father, me, but it’s her stuff and she’d flip if we tried to clean it up.

And that’s just the beginning. We never have any healthy food in the house. I’ve stopped really eating. No, I haven’t developed an eating disorder, it’s not that bad. I eat enough to get by and I don’t throw it up or anything. But I just can’t keep chomping on potato chips and poptarts. It makes me feel sick inside.

I’m not fat either-at least, compared to others. 142 lbs., a lot of which is muscle thank God. I take after my father, very muscular in the thighs and arms.

There’s never any healthy food. This morning we ran out of milk, so I had a chocolate breakfast bar. That was at 9:30. I didn’t eat anything else until 1:30, when I had a small bowl of cheddar soup and canned fruit. There’s just never any fresh apples or grapes or some shit like that in the house. And the pantry is just a den of chocolate and chips. 

So I haven’t been eating much. But every time I do I feel worse, because when I do eat it’s never anything healthy. I don’t think eating less works unless you start eating healthier, but whatever. Eating less is better than eating more, right?

Intro

I suppose I should introduce myself. But I’m not going to.

I’d prefer to remain anonymous. All you really need to know is that I’m the one with the broken wings. And I’m sure I’m not alone. I can’t be alone. Everything I’ve ever heard points to just the opposite.

It’s taken me a while to realize that I have broken wings. A long while. I guess it’s not too surprising, considering my family appears to have a history of it through my mother’s side. Depression, that is. 

Yes, I know Blackbird by the Beatles isn’t about depression; it’s about oppression. Sometimes I feel like they’re the same thing. At least, one leads to the other.

I’ve never told anyone how I feel. It’s not anybody else’s problem, especially my father’s-my mother suffers from depression and can be a nasty bitch when she’s off her meds. My brother has autism-not severe, not now anyway, it used to be-but enough that soon kids are going to notice he’s weird and start picking on him.

Yes, I’ve got broken wings. I’ve tried so hard to fly. This blog is a place for me to express myself without interfering with my fandom blog and see if there’s anybody else out there with broken wings.