try to fix what i’ve undone

This is the email I got just before break from Frobo about my lesson.

Hi Rory,
I just wanted to tell you how great you sounded in your lesson yesterday, which I was going to mention after I saw you teach James, but forgot. Anyway, you are quite talented and quite a natural musician. I know that you’ll come a long way by the end of the semester.
Have a great break,
Dr. Frobo

At that point, I was so tired and stressed I ended up crying. It was the week Newfie was leaving and Spring Break was starting. I was just stretched so thin. I was kind of touched. It seemed like she is actually starting to respect me. It seemed like she was actually starting to realize I don’t suck as a player. I know I had a really rocky start to the semester and basically haven’t had a great rest of the semester either. But I know she and I had a bad start to our relationship as well. I’ve just had a hard time respecting her and finding her very helpful. I have a hard time respecting a professor who insists on being called Dr who dresses like a 15-year-old. She bears her mid-drift and wears skimpier tops than were allowed in my high school. Its not even summer, when its swealtering hot. But I’m getting off my point. We don’t have the best relationship. She doesn’t really respect me and I don’t really respect her. So that email kind of caught me off guard.

Then this week in my lesson, we were working on my English horn piece. To be honest, I hadn’t really looked at that particular movement yet. So I was kind of sight-reading most of it. So my technique was a bit off and she told me so. But at the end of my lesson, she complimented me again. She told me I was easily the best English horn undergrad she has ever met. I was honestly taken aback. First of all, I hadn’t practiced that piece at all and I was working on a reed not made for that piece at all. What would she have said if I had put effort into the piece? Then I started thinking, I know plenty of undergrads who are much better than I at this instrument. I love the instrument, definitly. But Jacob at MSM in NYC is considerably better than I. And Karl who must be a freshman or sophmore in college somewhere is far above me as well. And not on oboe, on English horn. I never heard them play oboe because I met those guys at an English horn masterclass. So my reaction was kind of astonishment and disbelief. Maybe she doesn’t get out much. I mean, who excatly is she comparing me too? What other undergrads has she met who really play it? Then I started thinking, well I’m no typical undergrad. I’m not your average junior college student. I’m 24 years old and have played English horn for almost eight years. Granted there was a little 3 year sabbatical from all things double-reed, but still. I have considerable experience with the instrument. More than your typical undergrad. I mean, I owned one in high school. It was bought and paid for by me. My parents own my oboe, as an investment. But I own my English horn. Alright, alright. My mother finally told me to stop complaining and just enjoy the compliments. To stop overthinking them and just accept them. I wondered for a moment though too if she was slightly patronizing me because she now knows I’m bipolar and I’ve been struggling. Which would really piss me off. Doc never patronized me. If something sucked and needed work, she would tell me. And if something was good, she’d tell me that too. I just don’t know Frobo well enough and am still on the fence about respecting her. Really, it may be cliche, but you don’t demand respect. You earn it. Maybe even command it. It can’t be a verbal order of telling people to respect you. There has to be something else. Something in the way you walk or talk or interact. I don’t know. But you can’t get it the way Frobo has tried. At least not with me. Waving your doctorate in my face won’t impress me. Maybe its the years I’ve spent with lawyers who are complete morons. I’m not easily impressed or intimidated. I don’t know.

But this is still not really my point. Let’s say I take both compliments at face value and just accept them for what they are. Someone saying something nice and true about me and my playing. Except I’m still not doing well. Monday’s anxiety attacks were absolutly horrible. And today was a lot better, but I felt just a bit manic. I was with Mouse in Instrument Storage for a while and I could feel how manic I was. And I was feeling this way all day long. I only had one cup of coffee this morning, so I know it wasn’t a caffeine overdose. And there’s been no crash either. I’m still feeling frantic. So my fear now is that my mental state has been affecting my playing. This has always been my biggest fear. I play better when I’m going psycho. I always have. Without fail, I’ve heard Doc tell me how great my playing has become as my mood starts bouncing off the walls. Is this only more proof? Is this only more evidence that my bipolarism and my music are intrinsically linked? Will I ever be able to be this musical, this amazing without being this depressed, this anxious, this crazy? Or will I have to choose? My sanity or my music?

I can’t stand to think about a heart so big it hurts like hell
Oh my god I gave my best but for three whole years to end like this
Well do you want to fall apart? I can’t stop if you can’t start
Do you want to fall apart? I could if you can try to fix what I’ve undone
Cause I hate what I’ve become

You know me, oh you think you do. You just don’t seem to see
I’ve been waiting all this time to be, something I can’t define
So let’s cause a scene. Clap our hands and stomp our feet or something,
Yeah something I’ve just got to get myself over me

I could stand to do without all the people I have left behind
What’s the point in going around when it’s a straight line baby, a straight line down
So let’s make a list of who we need and it’s not much if anything
Let’s make a list of who we need and we’ll throw it away
‘Cause we don’t need anyone. No we don’t need anyone

You know me, oh you think you do. You just don’t seem to see
I’ve been waiting all this time to be, something I can’t define
So let’s cause a scene. Clap our hands and stomp our feet or something,
Yeah something I’ve just got to get myself over me
And I hate what I’ve become.

You know the night life is just not for me
‘Cause all you really need are a few good friends
I don’t want to go out and be on my own,
You know they started something I can’t stand
You leave for the city, well count me out
‘Cause all this time is wasted on everything I’ve done

You know me, oh you think you do. You just don’t seem to see
I’ve been waiting all this time to be, something I can’t define
So let’s cause a scene. Clap our hands and stomp our feet or something,
Yeah something I’ve just got to get myself over me

You know me, oh you think you do. You just don’t seem to see
I’ve been waiting all this time to be, something I can’t define
So let’s cause a scene. Clap our hands and stomp our feet or something,
Yeah something I’ve just got to get myself over me

Yeah, over me
Yeah over me

The First Single (Cause a Scene) ~ The Format