Senior Year - 10/25/2006 in 2005 - 2007: High School

Lately I've been feeling like everything I do is kind of pointless and kind of absurd. I've been doing it anyway, hard. I have thrown myself into it, because what else is there to do, really? But somewhere on the inside, I don't quite know what's going on. I don't quite care. I feel like I'm slightly detatched from everything - even things that I thought I'd never be detatched from. Marching band. Pit. My friends. That's why I haven't written in a long time - I've lost interest in the the little world that I write about. I do what I do enthusiastically. But I'm not really interested in it.

It's because it's senior year. It's because no matter what I do, there's a little voice in the back of my head saying, "Next year, it'll all be over. It'll all be gone." I guess the fact that this is finally a reality is changing me a little bit. I've noticed before that as graduation grows closer, seniors change. They seem to get more layed back. They don't seem to invest too much emotion in too much of anything. They are happy, and they want to have fun, and they don't care. I am moderately terrible at laying back and having fun, and I hate not having things to care about. So I don't know what will happen to me. But whatever it is, it's starting to happen.

I suppose the best way to convey what's generally been going on in my life is to summarize my minor emotional breakdowns:

1. Broke down because I hated the marching band show. I hated it because it's silly. The whole third song is a joke. It's basically a bunch of strung-together stand shorts that all have the word "crazy" in the title. It doesn't really sound good, and it's not really meant to. It's not good music. In addition to this, they have us do a bunch of gimmicky things with the marching like hopping on one foot and high stepping in circles. I kept thinking, "I don't want to be a joke band. I want to be a good band. I want to play good music. But we're not good. We suck, and no one cares, not even Mr. Thomas." This one was pretty bad. I went to bed depressed after practice and I woke up depressed in the morning, and it faded very slowly over a relatively long period of time without much of a resolution. I hate the show a little less now. I guess it's alright. I guess the audience likes it. And I guess at least the second song is cool and pretty. I think what this is really about is the fact that it's my senior year in marching band, and marching band is not perfect. And we, the leaders, really aren't as amazing as we thought leaders had to be when we were freshmen. Those kind of people don't actually exist. Eric is an excellent drum major. He really is brilliant and powerful. He's grown into the role beautifully, more than I ever could have, and I bet the freshmen revere him. But he's still not perfect. In essence, he's still the same effeminate fourteen year old who was petrified of Mike the Drill Instructor and who made me take his trumpet to Mr. Thomas when he broke it so that he wouldn't get yelled at.

2. Broke down because I thought that I couldn't possibly get all that college shit in on time. I did, and it wasn't even that hard.

3. Started taking the SATs, looked at the essay question, thought, "fuck this," and walked out. I just couldn't get myself to take the test. I just didn't want to, so I just didn't. After that I absolutely crashed. Because it hit me head on that the SATs just aren't important. And if the SATs aren't important, what is? Nothing. Nothing matters. Everything is shit. Fuck everything. I called my father and he picked me up, and I spent a few hours at home in the absolute depths of depression before I dragged myself through band practice. I don't even remember that practice.

4. Broke down because I feel like I'm losing Molly, and even if I'm not, I'll lose her soon anyway because soon I'll be leaving. I felt like she just didn't want me around anymore - that all I was doing was annoying her and that I should just stay away from her. I kept thinking about what happened with Emma. I just stopped liking her, for no reason, so I ditched her. I couldn't help it. I stopped enjoying her company. She stopped being interesting. What if the same thing was happening to Molly with me? What if she and Dave were getting so close that she just didn't need me anymore? There would be nothing I could do about it. And she really hasn't been very nice to me lately. She still invites me places, but we did that with Emma for a while too, just to be nice. Molly seems to be turning into the kind of person who would maintain a friendship just to be nice. Note that I don't feel like my relationship with Dave has changed. It hasn't, at all. We are close and we have good conversations and we are never jerks to each other. But my relationship with Molly has. I don't know what it is and I hate it.

This breakdown took place in front of my mother. She didn't really tell me anything that little rational voices in my head hadn't already.

Last band practice, Eric, in one of his brilliant drum major moments, told us to give a hug to everyone we march next to during the show. So Molly hugged me, and then she hugged some other people, and I didn't really hug anyone because I felt uncomfortable. After some pretty serious chaos, he restored order and said, "Alright, so here's the point: During the show, you are going to be severely criticized by the people you just hugged, and you are going to want to criticize them. When that happens - and it will - just remember that there is love here."

And Molly said, "...I do love you," and it sounded like she probably realizes what's going on.

I don't know. We have been hanging out. But something's off. It's the same thing that's off about everything else this year. Everything's dying.

I do very little work in school. I haven't done homework at home in many weeks. I do my AP calculus homework during my independant study, and I don't do my AP French homework at all. She checked a bunch of it the other day, and I told her I would show it to her Friday. She cared less than I expected her to. I haven't decided whether or not I'm actually going to do it. I'm certainly not doing it now. I just don't care. I don't even pay attention for most of the day. The only class I pay attention in is Chinese. In French I just space out. In calc, I have long conversations with the other non-geniuses which the calc teacher never even bothers to interrupt. In gym I stand around and try not to get hit by stuff, in concert band I play easy music, and in my independant study I do my calc homework in about twenty minutes and then take an hour and a half lunch. A bunch of freshman come into my hour and a half lunch during their study and gossip about band with me. They seem to think I'm cool. It makes me a little happy. The freshman band gossip also amuses me a little. One of them, the bari sax player, already wants to be drum major. And so the cycle continues.

What I have been doing... All I've been doing, really, is arranging. I have put a ton of fucking work into my jazz band. I took a day off one day and arranged 'Round Midnight from eight in the morning until eight at night. I spend hours just organizing. And I lie awake in bed planning what I'll do at the next rehearsal.

But even that isn't going perfectly. I have a hard time maintaining order. The flutes don't rock hard enough. And I might have to rearrange parts, because Mike and Julian might have quit on me. It's not wicked awesome. It is going exactly the way you'd expect a student-run big band to go. I don't know what else I expected. I am not magical.

I don't fucking see Julian anymore. Only when he comes into the band room. (I live in the band room now more than I ever did before. It's to the point where it goes without saying that I run into people whenever they come into the band room.) When I do see him, I feel nothing, and it makes me lonely.

I was fretting about my jazz band audition because I couldn't play the audition peice, but it was today, and it went like this: Before I even started, Mr. Casto handed me the flute part to Spain so that I could take a look at it before we play it at the first rehearsal. Then he said, "alright, play something." So I played a trombone feature that we did in JV last year, and royally screwed up the fast stuff I was going to impress him with. Then he told me to stop and gave me a speech about how I was going to be a leader this year in varsity, along with Julian and Dave and people, and he knows I already know how to be a band leader, he just wanted to tell me that. Then we kind of chatted about this really good freshman bass player who Mr. Casto already knows will be in varsity because he "probably outshines Rob." That was my audition.

Then Dave did his audition, which apparantly went about the same way but worse, and then he gave me a ride home and we talked about music and not caring and being in over our heads. He understands me. I wish we didn't have to leave and never see each other again.

Hopefully I will be able to write about amusing stuff again soon.