So, due to medical factors (not overly serious) my trip to Peru has been cancelled at the last second. It’s been a rough few days of trying to readjust to that reality. There will be more rough days to come. But that’s the update for now. Things proceed the way they should proceed. Or that is, at least, how I will do my best to get by.
t-minus 19 days
28 days off meds, 19 days until I leave for Peru. I feel displaced and uncomfortable in my skin. There are moments that I’m excited to go, and other moments of terror. On the whole, the excitement moments are losing. But I know this makes a difference, I know there’s an “other side” to this terrible process. So I try to wait it out. I try to ignore the sense of decay and collapse. Little bits of me flaking off, like Joe Chip.
My inclination is not to post this. My inclination, frankly, is to not say anything until this is over. I don’t fake things well, but I fake them anyway out of a desire to not have to talk about it at length. But I also remember how dark things got for me after I got back from Peru the last time and couldn’t reconnect to all of the good. Because I had shut down and hadn’t forced myself to talk about it as it was happening. So it took me almost a year to even begin rekindling that feeling and putting it into words.
So, here I am typing. This is for me. Please remember to read it later.
Updates and free stuff!
Hi there. It’s me. I’m completely off Cymbalta this week. It’s pretty weird. I head for Peru in 45 days. I’ll try to keep updating as long as I’m able. Back in 2010, the process of weaning off meds left me unwilling to bother writing about what I was doing. I mean, there was lots of other stuff going on, and I had quit doing music so there was even less of a reason to be posting public blatherings about my mental state. But I didn’t even try and write down what happened to me until almost a year had passed. I regretted it for a long time, as I think I would have retained so much more if I could have managed to write in the moment.
So far, weaning off Cymbalta has had plenty of rough spots, but there’s still an active part of me that is creative, and that’s nice. A month ago, I had a revelation about the next record and that’s been a big help. We started recording some songs a while ago, you might recall, but I didn’t really know what the shape of the thing was going to be and so I was even slower than usual in following through. But, now that I know where I’m headed with it, I have a lot of enthusiasm for the project. There’s also a secondary project that is full of crazy, dumb ideas that I’m excited about, too.
I’ve been involved in a couple of side projects… Paul Schwartz (Big Fish Ensemble) is writing new songs and formed a band called The Lord High Admirals. We played our first show recently, recordings are being made, so you can probably expect to hear more about that in the new year. Pink Pompeii was another band I was involved in, where I was playing keyboards and triggering sounds. It was completely out of my comfort zone and it was really a lot of fun for me, but sadly it ended too soon. Bands are skittish little creatures and sometimes you just can’t keep them tame.
And, though my record has been spotty of late (new Weekly Cover Thing is up this week!), I continue to make music for a Facebook group called Theme Music. Speaking of which, here is some more free stuff, just for you. I made it with love. And frequently my iPad.
Five volumes of those things now, you guys, grab them all. And thank you for sticking around.