(no subject)

Feb 05, 2006 17:42

I haven't written on here in ages.

I had what was fairly close to a mental breakdown on friday. I'd been a bit depressed all week, because my stupid stupid bloody history teacher has been piling work on us like we're sodding carthorses, she's set us about four essays to do for MONDAY... but it really started before my piano lesson, when I sat down at my piano for the first time in two weeks (yeah, I know, it's my own sodding fault), only to find, surprise surprise, that I couldn't play any of my pieces, let alone the four-page Mozart that I used to know fairly well. So that panicked me somewhat. Then I had to hike all the way up to my teacher's house because my parents were at a funeral (which should have warned me, really), and when I got there it felt like the blood had frozen in my veins. The little boy who goes before me, Jamie, was still there, and he kept hanging around, wanting to hear me play. So I tried playing a bit of Mozart (not the monster one, another easier one), but I couldn't. This was partly because my fingers were numb, and also partly because I had practiced it in a bit of a rush before going out. So Jamie was disappointed and had to bugger off.
So then the lesson started. I played the piece okay the second time round, but Pam (my teacher) told me not to attempt the Variation, which is bloody tricky. So I didn't, which is probably a good thing. But then we got onto Simple Solution (which has a stupid name, but is actually my favourite piece). I played the first bit fine, but then when it got to the bit I don't know so well, I kept slipping up, which annoyed me. Then we got to the bit I was meant to practice over the two weeks, and hadn't. Normally I can blag it, but for some reason on Friday I couldn't, so Pam had to practically tell me every note as I was going along. Bless her, she's so patient, and when I was finally done (it was painful, let me tell you), she said, all optimistically, "The first bit was very good." Oh dear.
So then I expected her to ask me to play the hard Mozart, but instead she asked me to play Happy Farmer (which has a stupid name and is my least favourite piece of all time). I hadn't even attempted to practice that one, since I hate it, so I started it but completely and utterly failed. Normally I'll just make some joke and carry on when that happens, but on Friday, I don't know what was happening, but I just felt like everything was coming down around me or something, and before I knew it I was howling.
Poor Pam. I think she thought someone had died. She was all like "Whatever's the matter?" And I had to control myself to garble inaudibly "It's...just...school...haaaaaard" or words to that effect.
And Pam went "....Sorry?"
So basically I told her, truthfully, that school was difficult and I couldn't cope and I hated it anyway, and she was terribly sympathetic, gave me a box of tissues (which I completely used up mopping my already cold-ridden nose) and told me that when she was my age she'd given up piano completely to go to work, and had come back to it four years later only to find that she'd lost the touch. There's a bit of a difference between two weeks and four years, but she skimmed over that. Anyway, she went on to say that, even if, when I looked at a piece, I couldn't remember how to do it, my fingers always would, and that I should just take it slowly and work it out all over again. That's what she did. And it's true, my fingers did know how to play Happy Sodding Farmer, it was just my brain half panicking, half saying "I can't be arsed".
By that time it was ten to five, and my mum was due to pick me up in five minutes. Pam tried her best to cheer me up, even wrote me a little rota in my book that tells me which piece to spend ten minutes on every day (she said "As long as you touch the piano every day, you won't forget"), but by that time I was gone. I didn't cry any more until I got into my mum's car, then I started up again when she asked me what was wrong. So then we had the whole garbling fiasco again, while she was driving me home. When we got there I went straight upstairs and sat on my bed in the corner and just cried for about two hours straight.
Yeah I know, it sounds so pathetic, but I did want to just stop living right then.
Anyway, once that was done, I watched The Simpsons and cheered up enough to eat some dinner, and after that I was ok-ish. But I had a strange feeling inside me... I haven't felt it since my Auntie Lynn died when I was 7. I never really knew her that well - she was my grandad's second wife - but it was the first time anyone in my family had died when I was old enough to know about it. And I think it was just the realisation that people can die and it can affect people (it broke my grandad's heart) that made me feel like that. I don't know what the feeling is, it might be depression but I'm not sure. Anyway, it just makes me feel numb and lonely inside, and the world seems to have this dark tint to it even when I've got my light on and it's sunny outside. I had it then, and ever since the Friday incident I've had it again. It's not as intense as it was when I was 7, but I'm still not myself. Not even the idea of Tenerife can make me happy, especially since I've just gone down and, true to Pam's rota, tried to play Mozart, and failed miserably again.
So yeah. It'll go away, it always does. I'll write down all the things that are good in my life:

1) I have a great family and good friends
2) Even though I might struggle at school, at least I'm on a path that's leading me somewhere
3) We're going to Tenerife this time next week!
4) I have new clothes to wear in Tenerife (little things please little minds)
5) I CAN play the piano, no matter what I tell myself... in fact, just now, before I tried to play Mozart, I totally succeeded in playing the first half of Somewhere Only We Know by Keane, from the sheet-music Dad got me for Christmas
6) I'm going to Spain in August with Rachel, my parents, my brother and my grandad.
7) I have a cool cat called BUFFY!
8) I am sort of almsot done with my history homework

There. Now that's something (or things) to be happy about. And I am determined to be happy.

Luv me xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Previous post Next post
Up