MY own CHEMICAL ROMANCE

I Fall Out Of Grace

Pretty sad when you sit

and try to evaluate

what you're actually good at

and all you can

come up with is

Crying.

And Time Marches On...like it or not.

Each year, on my birthday, I feel sick.

Physically, Emotionally, Totally Sick.

This year, for some odd reason, it wasn't so bad.  In fact, I actually had a good day.  I was in a good mood.  I even asked to have my picture taken with my family members.  If you knew me, you'd know how much of a HUGE deal that is.  To top it off, my sister gave me 2 tickets to see Journey and Def Leppard.

Wow.

It blew my head open, and I hate to say it, I immediately started thinking of reasons why I didn't want to or couldn't go.

Why?

Because I have a hard time accepting that time has passed.  These tickets meant having to face that fact.  These tickets meant I would be transported back in time to when I was just "starting off" with a "life".

The first BAND that I latched onto was Def Leppard, when they came out with Hysteria...not just, "Oh, I like this song" kind of band, or, "Wow, I like these guys" kind of band...I LOVED them.  I had a "shrine-wall" dedicated to them, banners, fliers, albums, cassettes, pins, bandannas, magazine articles and photographs plastered all over the place.  I wore their t-shirts all the time to school, and of course, fell in love with Rick Allen, the drummer.

I was probably obsessed with them.  They were the first band that, as a teen, I covered myself in.  I even remembered hearing their songs when I was younger *the ones that were hits on the radio before Rick's accident*.  I got to see them in concert quite a few times for that tour, and couldn't have been happier *okay, if I got to meet them in person I would have been*.

When I "jumped", I "JUMPED" to Guns N' Roses, they helped me deal with my aggression, my thoughts, my feelings more so than Def Leppard, at least at the time it felt that way.  Axl was someone that I could always identify with, even if I never "knew" him.  Alright, so I could identify with the persona that the media portrayed Axl to be.

I started liking other bands, Metallica *I thought they could read my mind*, "Hair Bands" galore, Anthrax, Primus...I could go on forever.  I don't think that I ever obsessively focused on a band as I did that very first time.  Oh, I do obsess, even now, but not the way I did when I was a young teen.  For a long, long time now, I've been in some sort of denial.  Almost as if there was nothing before  Guns N' Roses and nothing after My Chemical Romance. 

These tickets were the realization of things I didn't want to remember.

I hadn't been feeling well, people in my house were sick with one form of a cold or another and I had ear infections.  I thought I would have the perfect "out".  I convinced myself that I couldn't go because I was sick, I had no money, I was afraid of the crowds.  I knew full and well that I wouldn't have to pay for anything, my sister took care of that as my gift.  I knew that if I took a few Klonapin, I might be able to manage the panic from the crowds.  I knew that if I had something to drink, it would relax me even a bit more.  I knew that if I took some Ibuprofen and brought earplugs with me, my ears wouldn't be much of a problem.  I had myself convinced though that I was not going to go.

I called her yesterday morning to tell her that I was going to go.

I went last night.

I had a FRIGGIN' AWESOME time!!!  But, I cried.  I cried not just for the sentimental values of the songs, not just because we've all aged, not just because I missed Steve Clark and was sad that he had died...but because all of it put together nearly killed me.  Memories+Passing Time+Sadness=Emotional Snap.

It was a bittersweet event.

I am crying as I sit here typing this.  It was awesome...but so very sad.

I know that it will take me quite some time to recover from the show.

I never thought it possible for me to ever go to another concert again.  It had been about 9 years since I went to one, and I was sure that I'd die from my nerves and phobias.  I made it through. 

I didn't "forget my past" so to speak.  It was just a hard Journey to make.

Maybe it will be possible to make it to 2 more before I die.

Guns N' Roses again

and My Chemical Romance.

Guns N' Roses represents the power that I felt they gave me.

My Chemical Romance represents the power that I feel they give me.

These two bands and everything in between will make me smile, laugh, cry, slam, scream, think, dream, and live, forever.

Somewhere over the rainbow...

Sure, I can live in my "own little world" as much and as often as I'd like, over the rainbow, in another place, in my own mind, wherever, whatever.

Sad things happen, bad things happen, sorrow, guilt, pain, tears.  What can you do?  Where can you hide?

The fact that my cat, Mr.Peanut, or Peanut for short, was about 20 years old was a very well known fact, a solid piece of reality in my life.  The fact that it meant that he would die, well, that was not something I liked to deal with, death in general actually, is something that I try to ignore.

I tend to ignore a lot in my life.  Somehow, in my head, if I do not think about it, it will go away.  I've learned many times that it doesn't, and I end up worse off for not dealing with it when I should have.  It still doesn't make me "face the music".  A flaw, one that I am not proud of.

Mr.Peanut was not doing well, he in fact, was dying. How Mr.Peanut came to be...

"The Rescue"

Peanut was brought home from Maine, when my aunt's neighbors moved and abandoned him.  We bonded the second I got out of the car and I snuck food from my aunt's house and fed him and begged my mother to let us take him home.  She finally agreed, I think it was mostly because my aunt said that they shoot abandoned animals, and that hit a nerve with my mother.  When my aunt moved to Maine, her cat, Blondie had a litter of kittens, Peanut was from that litter, so the age was pretty close at him being about 20.

He was an "outside" cat, he liked to play the Great Wild Hunter and drink water from puddles rather than the fresh water planted all over the house and outside specifically for him and other animals.  I was told that he was a wonderful hunter when in Maine, I guessed that he was just "over it" the last few years when I'd dangle mice or other things in front of him and he'd just look the other way.

In reality, he was the epitomy of CAT.  All of the stereotypes you can think of, all the scientific facts that are known = Peanut.

He was loved and he was, indeed, always part of the family.

"His Passing"

I think that I was "interrupting" the process, I would find him when he would hide and try to cover him up and pet him and talk with him, and all the while, while he was in the process of dying, he'd purr.  He would hide, I would find him.  I kept insisting that he did not want to die alone, even though I "know" that animals do not think like we do on a lot of things.  I wanted him to know that he'd be alright when he passed. 

He wanted badly to go outside onto the swing where he spent a great deal of his life, I finally gave in, checking on him constantly, trying to make sure that he was "safe" from other animals.  At four o'clock on Wednesday, I went to check on him, I don't know why, I had checked on him about a half an hour before that.  He was taking his last breaths. 

Memories of my father and him taking his last breaths washed over me, nearly knocking me over.  I do not care what people say, be it a human or an animal, if I love, I love, and it still hurts in many ways.

I picked him up and wrapped him in a warm towel, called my sister out, I held him close and we watched the life go out of him.  The wind was blowing.  I like to think that the wind took his spirit. 

He had a "coffin", we had a "funeral" and he was burried in the backyard.

He was my little fighter.  I will miss him terribly.

R.I.P my dear friend