In a dirty, crime ridden suburb there was a boy. Let's call him Me. Me had a hard time. He was quiet, and anxious, and Uncool*. He had very few friends - only the couple other kids labeled Uncool by everyone else at the lunch table. But Me wasn't passive - Me had problems. Like a short temper** and a hardcoded reflex to stick up for his friends. Combined, these led Me to get his ass kicked a lot. Like, so much.
In middle school things started to get better. Me found music, and an outlet. Music helped Me keep calm, kept Me from taking everything personally. It didn't always work. But Me felt connected to the musicians, felt they understood him. Marilyn Manson, DMX, Korn and Biggie. Kurt Cobain, Billy Corgan, David Bowie. Linkin Park, REM, Slayer and Nine Inch Nails. They were angry, they were sad, they came from places a lot like the one he was in and they all rose above it. And they did one other thing for him too - they introduced him to a girl.
She told Me that she would be dead by twenty three. She wore black makeup and torn t-shirts. She didn't care that Me's shoes were worn thin or that he was wearing hand me down frames with lenses that didn't quite fit. She didn't care that he moved five times in two years and never had pocket money. She was bright and laughed and always found him, always talked about becoming a writer and telling stories to the world.
But she didn't love Me. And Me knew that. She told Me he was the kind of guy she would probably end up with someday, and Me never forgot that. But he couldn't stay. His parents had run out of options. Nobody would rent to them in that dirty suburb anymore. Me had to move away.
He didn't tell her. He told her they could be together or they couldn't be friends. She wasn't there to say goodbye. He never forgot that either.
High school in a new town - a rural community without the train tracks and concrete and chain link that Me thought of as home. Trees and hills and grass. A better environment, his parents thought. Closer to Me's grandparents, and far away from the trouble that was his sisters boyfriends. Me didn't mind so much, even if he had to say goodbye to the few friends he had. Other friends came with him, in his tapedeck and CD player. Good Charlotte and Echo and the Bunnymen. The Stiff Little Fingers and Tupac. Dead Kennedy's and Slayer and ICP. Saliva and System of a Down and Alien Ant Farm and Johnny Cash. Neil Young and Neil Diamond. Rise Against and Lamb of God. Tom Waits, Jack Johnson, the White Stripes. Slipknot and Silverchair and Black Sabbath.
He made new friends. Learned to draw anime. Got pretty good, got pretty happy. But there were bad days too. Days he couldn't sleep at all and days he couldn't open his eyes. Days Me didn't want to go to school, didn't want to see his friends. Long, awful stretches of unrelenting heartache, bright, glorious days of cheerful activity.
It never occurred to Me that other people didn't live like this. That other people didn't cry during happy movies or feel flashes of rage for whispered conversations.
But Me didn't worry about it either. He listened to music because it helped. He tried to learn guitar, but his thick, short fingers held him back. He read books - he'd always read books, by the bag full. Those he'd borrowed or stolen from the shelves of libraries, the ones they passed out in school, even the ones he found, unattended, wherever they lay. And he played games. Video games, board games, role-playing games. Anything to not think about it. To not think of anything at all.
Sophmore year Me met a girl. A real country girl, with brown hair and flannel shirts and cowboy boots. She didn't like him at first. Didn't take him seriously. She thought he was making fun of her when he asked her out every day. He took her friend to Homecoming, because she asked Me.
Eventually they dated. It was nice. Pleasent. And then after a couple months came the kisses. Soft at first, lip to lip. And then with open mouths and abandon. The first time she showed Me her breasts, he didn't know what to say. Or do. He said "thank you". The first time he touched her below the waste she trembled, and he stroked her hair until she calmed down.
Eventually, Me dropped out of High School. "I'm too smart," he said, "It's boring." This was Junior Year. It would later go down as his second biggest mistake.
He got his GED two years later. He worked a job and then quit. He wasn't satisfied. Nothing made sense. Nothing fit. He was still on the outside.
She didn't leave him though. Not yet.
He tried College, and hated it as much as High School. After two semesters he came home for break. When it was time to leave again his girlfriend cried. He held her in his arms and told her he wouldn't go. He'd say home.
This would go down as his first biggest mistake in his entire life.
She was in College now, and in College she met a boy. He was everything Me was, but also thin and athletic and he had both money and a car. Oh, and one other thing he had over Me. He was actually happy.
She started talking more and more about this guy. They were in all the same clubs, and they became friends. She wanted this guy to end up with someone good. Someone who would make him happy. She started dreaming about him. Fantasizing about him in the bedroom. She shared some of the dreams and fantasies with Me. He was troubled, yes. But he trusted her.
She left Me for this other guy. She told Me that she didn't love him anymore, and left. He didn't see her for three years, until he caught sight of them picking out engagement rings.
Me was crushed. Devestated. Wrecked. He wanted to destroy something beautiful. He threw out every CD he owned. Shut himself away in a room of his parents house. He found himself pondering the least messy way to commit suicide.
He got help. Therapy, in secret, through a local church. He was diagnosed - something he'd struggled with as long as he could remember finally had a name. He was bi-polar.
It took awhile, and a few mistakes***, but he got better. He got distance from his problems. He got better, took steps to repair his life. He got a job, and stuck with it. He made new friends to replace the ones that he lost with his ex. He started writing again, something he had never considered anything more than a hobby.
He remembered a pale girl with black makeup who said she'd never live past twenty three. She was happy now, with a husband and two kids, and a black cat named Sabbath. She never became the writer she wanted to be.
But he could. He hurt her once, when he was sick and stupid and young. So he would dedicate the first thing he published to her. And he did.
She found him on facebook, and she laughed
This isn't the end of the story. It's barely the beginning. Between then and now, there is love and heartbreak and I left out all the skateboards and boxing gloves and the literal thousands of bands he found when all he had was free time. But those things just clutter the message, which is this:
It does get better. It never goes away, it never vanishes, it never stops hurting.
*which is much, much worse than being merely uncool, because Uncool was what you were when everyone collectively decided you were. And there is no coming back from that.
***like dating a sixteen year old girl.
kianamaiart
stormborns
titsay
