Rain

Even though It was my choice to go, I had no business being there.  My objective was different than theirs.  Their goals consisted of having the best four years of their lives, hopefully finding the perfect match for a spouse along the way, ending in some bullshit christianese Bible degree that would propel them into adulthood with educated class and dignity.  I just hoped to find a place that would give me enough structure to stay out of trouble for a while.  I didn’t quite fit.  They knew it and I knew it but neither of us cared too much.  My torn up military issued camouflage cargos and black Garbage t-shirt screamed chaos into the sea of khaki and button down polos.  I had carved words of hatred into the bottom of my blown out chuck taylors as if to make a statement - as if the words I tread on would be seen or heard by any one.  Looking back now, it seems like teenage angst was worn as beautifully on me as it was Shirley Manson’s smudged eyeliner or the ever present smug look Kurt can never seem to wipe off his face. 

            Elisabeth was the kind of girl that other girls love to hate.  With her air of confidence and petite stature, long blonde hair and deep brown eyes, my first reaction was distain.  Moments later though, her dark brown pools of reflection revealed that she too held her own demons closely and I knew that we were two people who might understand one another on a level beyond my outdated 90’s grunge and her flowing bohemian skirt and red mary janes.  That understanding came in the communication of mixed cds.  We didn’t talk much but with music that connects the soul, who really needs trivial conversation?  She was the one to first expose me to the depths music could reach within my core.  The fact that I’d never heard of Patty Griffin before was not a surprise as folk music was in the category of being contrary to anything I had become accustomed to listening to but “Rain” changed everything.  I couldn’t quite put my finger on what was so uniquely special about the chord changes and the powerhouse vocals erupting from this woman, but it grasped something in my innermost being that made me physically keel over in a fit of pain.  I had never heard anything so real in my life and although the pain that I knew at this point was inconsequential, it resonated with me. 

            That semester is when it really started to awaken.  This monster within me was breeding darkness in my soul and the simplicity of teenage angst seemed desirable compared to what was to come.  It’s not that teenage angst isn’t a reality in its own right, but at least that is something one can grow out of.  Angst like this in adulthood can’t be grown out of.  It just morphs into a miserable existence.  Isolation and addiction rampantly flowed through my veins and within months I had failed out of college and absolutely lost myself.  Throughout the years the torment grew and heaviness weighed me lower and lower to six feet below the surface.  I didn’t like what I was doing.  It was simply a means to feign the ability to execute life.  It wasn’t as though I went to a party one day and never left.  I was in the thralls of dependence.  By the time I was able to grasp that all control had truly been lost, I was horribly sick and without a solution.  The question was not if I should drink or drug, but how much?  Coming out of a seizure I would question if it was because I was overdosing or if it was because in my effort to escape the chaos, I had not given my body the ample amount of intoxicating substance it now needed simply to survive.  The stark emotion of “Rain” had left my mind long ago and the capability to even feel remotely human was non-existent.  Where Patty had once broken through the same walls of stone and steel she sung about, now no man could tread.  Hopelessness and emptiness filled the domain where angst once filled as life became less desirable.

            May 15, 2009, I boarded an airplane from Philadelphia to Kansas City for my second stint in rehab knowing that if it was at all possible that I could survive the week, maybe something could be different.  Details remain unknown as I failed the ability to recite even basic information such as my date of birth and address upon arrival.  I knew my name but nothing else made sense.  Looking in the mirror, I both literally and physically was unaware of who the person was staring back at me in the reflection.  Hours and days are lost as I lay curled up on the plastic covered detox bed shaking and sweating profusely.  Even the sound of the latch from the nurses opening and closing the door every thirty minutes sound like gunshots in my head and my veins feel like boiling blood is racing through them.  As the numbness that my body had known for years wore off, I was acutely aware of my human frailty.  Everything felt like a personal attack physically, mentally, and emotionally.  The raw abrasiveness of life was overwhelming beyond what words have the ability to describe.  I had to find a way to focus on one thing or I feared that I would take back the fight in which I just relinquished control over in order to survive the life I had lost hope to. 

            As I shuffled through my ipod, every song was just as abrasive to me as the outside world until I came to “Rain”.  With the first note I felt a sense of comfort and relief rush over me.  Instead of the initial pain I experienced with my first interaction with this song, the fog started to lift and I felt freedom.  Here, someone else had penned the words hidden deep within my soul that no one, not even I could reach.  Being 1000 miles from everyone and everything I knew, Patty was my shroud.  I was not alone.  For the first time since I had first lost myself, I knew that I was truly alive.  I felt air flood my lungs with every breath and “Rain” poured down on me, washing away the darkness that had enveloped me for years.  In that one single moment in time, I knew hope. 

            Throughout the next few months I struggled to string words together that made sense and explained what I was trying to convey.  At one point it was suggested that since my ipod might as well have been considered an extra appendage, that I use it to find the words I was desperately trying to grasp.  Music has always had a way of being a voice for me when my own voice was lost and this was no exception.   Even now, three years later, I will sit with my headphones on and completely enclose myself in a song.  Carefully picking out each lyric and instrument fixating myself on particular melodies and riffs, I listen over and over until I have convinced myself that I have heard every aspect of audio the song has to offer.  I might be so bold at this point to say that in sobriety, music is my new drug of choice.