Alright... this is part three. If you haven't read one and two yet, please read them first. This is a three part deal, and it's kinda disjointed to begin with. If you don't read them in order, it won't make any sense at all. Not even a little bit.

Thanks...

Part one

Part Two

Part Three...

I wrote to him, long letter. And I mailed it off to him in mid August. In September, after I started at Pacific Lutheran U., about a week before my 20th birthday, he sent me a letter. I was already extremely depressed. I didn't leave my room unless I had to and even then it was rare. His letter was four lines.

"You are sickening, disgusting and repulsive." That's the only real line I can remember. And then the PS "And lose some weight."

*shakes her head* That couldn't have been any more painful. There wasn't any way he could have hurt me more. Fuck me, that just sent me spinning down even further. I was so lost. so fucking lost.

On my birthday, I bought a box of single-sided razor blades. I looked at them for a long time. Days and days, looking at them. Going to classes. My only real "life" came from singing. That's all I had left. We moved closer to PLU. a block from campus. I went to class and came home and stared at the razor blades. I thought about driving into oncoming traffic but I couldn't. I knew that if I had driven into traffic, I would have killed someone else, injured myself, destroyed my car, but I wouldn't have died. I would have just caused more problems.

I thought about just driving off the cliff. *shakes her head* I couldn't do that cause I'd hurt my car. That was my thought, honestly and totally. If I drove off the cliff, I'd hurt my car.

So, I kept going. Kept putting one foot in front of the other, marching through life, not looking at anything, not concentrating. I didn't give a flying fuck about my schoolwork. I really didn't care. I didn't study. i blew off tests and I skipped classes. I kept looking at those razor blades.

I took one out and slashed at my arms. I wasn't really serious, but I wanted to cut myself. I wanted to die but I didn't want to actually take my life. ANd I didn't really want to die all that much, I just wanted to cease to exist.

I started having dreams. Recurring dreams. The same three dreams. It started out like twice a week. I'd have the first one, then the second, then the third, then the first again. In about late October, I ws having those dreams, one a night, every night. The first, then the second, then the third, and on and on.

I don't remember them exactly, but I have them written in my very first To Whom It May Concern: book. My first journal. I still have that journal in one of those four boxes over there in the corner of my room. I read through it every once in a while.

Regardless, the dreams were basically like this...

1) Me, watching my friends tied to a pole and being burned alive and me helpless to do anything about it.

2) Same dream, only this time I had a bucket of water... I had the ability to stop it, and I didn't.

3) Same, except this time, I had set the fire and watched them burn and I noticed, I WAS the fire. I was what was burning them. And I liked it.

*shakes her head* Nasty shit.

Anyway... Nearing the end of November, it came time for the Christmass rehearsals. The chorus I was a part of... the only reason I still had for being alive. The only reason I hadn't really tried to kill myself in earnest... I didn't believe in Christmas, and the church I was a part of at that time had a very, very intensely anti-Christmas doctrine. Extremely anti-Christmas doctrine. To the point where a person was frowned upon if they even said the word "Christmas".

I knew I couldn't sing in the Christmas concert. So, I thought about it a lot, and I talked with my Minister about it. He basically told me it was my choice, to sing or not. I chose not. I believed that it was WRONG to sing that stuff. So, I told my choir director that I couldn't be in the concert, and that I wouldn't perform.

*shakes her head* she was pissed. And I mean PISSED!!! She quietly read me the riot act for 45 minutes as I was standing outside in the parkinglot. She told me, repeatedly, that I was being an idiot and an ass. She told me that I was being stupid. She told me that I was making the wrong choice and who in hell would do such a thing. She told me that she could go into any church and within ten minutes, convince anyone that she'd been attending that church for her entire life.

But, I stood beside my decision. I believed that for me to sing for Christmas was wrong. And I told her I was sorry for pulling out of the choir at this date, but I just couldn't do it. I couldn't religiously do it. it compromised my beliefs. She continued to berate me for an aditional 45 minutes, then told me that I would not sing in her choir again. She said that I was betraying Christ by making this choice and that I was not only stupid but wrong.

She told me that I would flunk the course for that semester and that I would not be allowed to go on tour with the rest of the chorus next Spring. (I'd already paid my two thousand bucks for the tour. It was non-refundable) I stood there, tears screaming behind my eyes. I stood there, shocked, screaming inside. Screaming and screaming and screaming.

At the time, ten years ago, to sing in the Christmas concert was tantamount to me dealing the death blow to Christ Himself. And my choir director's decree that I would NOT sing again was tantamount to her shoving a rusty dagger through my throat and ripping it out. Sans anesthesia.

*smiles softly*

I chose my own death, rather than being the outright cause of Christ's death. Fuck, I was such a fuckin basket case. I should have been in a hospital. I really should have been.

*shrugs*

Anyway... She delt the final blow saying that I was required to apologize to the rest of the choir. *smiles faintly* I did. But it felt like I was having to apologize to everyone else for her ripping my throat out. *shakes her head* It didn't make sense to me. Of course, it didn't make sense to many of the other members of the choir either. Many came up to me afterward.... I was required to go into rehersal, apologize to everyone, and then walk out while they went on to practice... and asked me why I was supposed to apologize. They asked me what that was all about. *smiles softly* I answered honestly. I said I didn't know why.

Sometimes it really frosts me that I dealt with the situation like that...

*sighs* Anyway, I went home and stared at that box of razor blades. And I wrote in my book. And I started making out my will. I believed my life was over. That's how it felt to me. I was just sitting there, on the edge of life. I had no reason to stay alive. I was a failure in every possible aspect. I was lost and alone and gone and..... and I was a stupid, assinine fool who refused to sing Christmas songs because she believed it was wrong to preach something she didn't believe in.

Damn, that was such a hard decision to make. For me to consciously choose to buck the system. And then be so.... humiliated for my beliefs.

And then the dreams came to me every night, all three of them, in a row. More hateful and more vengeful. I really got into the third one. I could actually feel, in this dream, the flesh of my body turning into flame as it/I writhed around my "friends". As I killed them, slowly and extremely painfully. The scents of burning fless became a need. In those vividly colored dreams...

*shakes her head* I was so fuckin messed up.

Anyway... I don't think there's any significance to this, but perhaps it was a subconscious rebellion... On December 24th, 1990, I set out my To Whom It May Concern: book. I had it open to my "will". I had two towels. big towels. I had cleaned my room. Spotless. The last thing I wanted to do was leave a big mess for my Mother to clean up. Hell, I "knew" that would be the thing she'd say as soon as she found me... "Oh my God... what a mess." *shakes her head* Like I said... I was really messed up.

So, I had a fresh razor blade in my hand. I had a towel spread out over my lap to catch the blood. I had my door blocked closed, so that a tap wouldn't open the door... so that you really had to push the door to get it open. And then I began. I cut my wrists, both of them, basically just a little... but then, I got out a can of aerosol anesthetic spray and completely numbed my left wrist. I then, repeatedly, cut slow and deep, length-wise along the main vein of my wrist.

And I bled.

A lot.

I kept cutting and anesthetizing my left wrist. Over and over and over again. Then, I wasn't doing enough, I started crying and cutting. *shakes her head* Fuck, I was so completely fucked up. I don't know if I just fell asleep, or if I actually passed out. But I know that I didn't dream. I didn't think. I didn't feel. I just kept bleeding into that towel. Making sure not to get any on the bedspread. Making sure not to get any on my clothes.

And yes, I wore clothes. I didn't want Mom to be embarrassed by having to call an abulance for her naked daughter. I didn't want anyone to have to go out of their way to clean up after me.

I remember my mother pounding on my door in the morning, trying to open it, yelling about how I'd better get up cause we were going to be late for the two hour drive up to visit the relatives (others who didn't celebrate Christmas)

*shakes her head*

I remember getting up, rather silently, choosing a white, long sleeved, turtle neck type shirt, looking at the towel and other "gear" and sort of rolling them all up together and tossing them into my closet. I remember going into the bathroom and as I did my morning bathroom stuff, I actually wrapped my wrist, which was quite deeply cut. And it hurt like a motherfucker. The cuts on my right wrist were really only scratches, tho they were still tender. But my left wrist... I'm really surprised I didn't slice a tendon. Fuck, I'm surprised I'm alive.

So, silently, I went with my folks up to visit the fam. I didn't tell anyone about it. I just remained primarily silent. I didn't think much. I just felt.... as if I had been refused by God. As if the only other thing I could do had been refused by Him. *shakes her head*

I continued with school, but I didn't care. My GPA dropped to about 1.9 or so. The only reason it was that high is because I actually showed up to most of my classes. I pretty much just rode the tide. I didn't think much, I didn't sing with my whole heart. I just endured it.

Oh, I'd told Mom about the thing with the choir director. She got reemed by the Head of the Music Department. I was given an A for the first semester and reinstated in the choir... but my heart wasn't in it. I felt... I don't know... like I was cheating or something. And I kept walking around in a daze. But, I would sing, and I would play piano once in a while. I'd use the Stienway Concert Grand and play once in a while... at night, with the lights off... but it just....... it didn't flow. And it felt like cheating.

When I was alone, I could sing. For some reason.

And then we went on tour. In Spring of 91. We went to Norway, Sweden and Denmark for three weeks. I had been asigned a few solos to practice. And I did. And I got them down pat. But, on tour, I wasn't ever allowed to do a solo. Not once. My counterpart... the other girl who had my solos, (she didn't like me much) asked the director if she'd let me sing... that her voice was getting tired and she knew that I knew the solos better. But the director either evaded the question or said "Next time".

I wanted to sing a solo so bad. so very bad. Not because of the noteriety or applause... but because we were singing in some of the most increadible churches in the world. The accoustics were stunning, and to hear my own voice with those accoustics....

There was one time on that tour when I had thought everyone was gone. I sang. I sang the solos I'd rehearsed and memorized. It was such an incredible sound. And some of my choir-mates heard... And the director heard... but I still wasn't "good enough" to sing the solo in public.

*shrugs*

That's really when the fire inside me died. completely. Knowing that I'd nailed the pieces... knowing that she'd heard me... knowing that I was better than the other girl... knowing that she, who didn't like me, asked that I sing... *shakes her head* And not being allowed to. That was the final straw.

When that semester was over and I'd gone back home... I pretty much skulked around for a while. but I didn't sing. And I didn't play.

I don't think I even sang to the radio in my car. I just stopped.

In about february or so, of 92, I heard about karaoke. I sang three or four different times... but it just wasn't the same. It just....... It wasn't me anymore.

I played piano three or four times since then, but only twice for more than five minutes. And even then, it was in the dark, by myself.

I haven't played a piano for more than 5 minutes in 7 years. And I haven't honestly sung... not with the life and vitality... not with the passion I used to, in about 9 years.

I will tho. I will get that back. I'm so much more alive and healthy now than I was even two years ago.

So much more alive.

But still... that's a kind of long-way explination of why I stopped playing piano. And why I still don't play. But I've starting doing a lot of things I never thought I'd do again.

I still have the scars on my left wrist. They're really, really obvious. To my eyes, anyway. I've been asked about them four times in the past year and a half. I hadn't ever been asked about them before.

I was going to try and come up with some really quippy ending... but currently the part of my brain in charge of quippiness is either asleep, or deeply entangled in thoughts of how to fix the problem now.

*smiles softly*

Perhaps, someday, you'll actually hear me on the radio.

And, if you want to know what my piano style is like... get a tape or CD of George Winston. That's almost identical to my style.

Regardless, I'm exhausted and want to sleep now. I'm going to post this then jet on off to bed.

Til next time...

J