"Okay, I might have worked on something," I said one early March afternoon, as we were practicing in Jace' and Cassie's basement like always. We were just taking a break.
"What is it?" Nate asked casually, tapping away on his phone. He sat right across me, his legs touching mine.
"A few weeks ago I sat down and started writing down whatever came to my mind. You know, lyrics."
Four heads turned to me, looking at me expectantly.
"Did anything result in it?" Nate asked.
"I worked on it for a while and I think you could say I wrote a song. I just... I wrote everything that I felt and that was so freeing. I didn't know such an outlet would help so much," I said. "Also I only had my guitar to write the song with, but I think it would be better on piano."
"What's the song called?" Dan asked me. He was sitting a bit further away from me, much to my dismay.
"It's called Everything Is Blurry But These Feelings Are Real. In the past months I really felt like everything around me was happening in a blur, thanks to my medication. The centerpiece of that was just me with so many feelings that I didn't know what to do with them, especially since they were usually behind a wall, also thanks to my medication. It's like I could see all of them behind a glass wall and there were so many but I never reached them."
"Do you want to share it with us?" Nate asked.
I nodded. "That's why I brought it up, yeah. It's far from perfect but I thought if I share it with you we could work it out together. Hand me that guitar."
Nate turned around and grabbed his acoustic guitar that was lying on the ground behind him. He handed it to me and everyone looked at me expectantly.
"Alright," I said and tried to remember the lyrics and chords I had come up with. I cleared my throat and started playing.
The song started with a good ten seconds of melody, then the lyrics started.
"Now you're gone
And I'm here
Left all on my own
Everything is unclear
Could I have saved you?
Did I care?
Would it have made a difference?
Would you still be here?
The pain burns in my chest
It won't let me go
Everything is blurry
But these feelings are real
They say it gets better
But does it ever? Does it ever?
They say that time heals
But that's not what I feel
Nights blur into days
Days blur into weeks
Nothing seems to change
But these feelings are real
Everything is blurry
But these feelings are real
So please send me a sign
I'm waiting, I've got time
It just seems too unreal
Send me a sign, I need to heal
Everything is blurry
But these feelings are real
Everything is blurry
But these feelings are so real"
There was another instrumental bit at the end and then it was over.
"Well, that's something to start with!" Nate said enthusiastically and clapped his hands once.
"Yeah, I think that was actually quite amazing," Dan agreed and Jace and Cassie also cheered me on.
"Like I said, I think it would be better with piano. I just don't have one."
"Well, I do. We can work that out together," Dan proposed.
"Great idea," I said with a bright smile. I liked that he still wanted to do stuff with me, it made me happy and feel a little less crappy about myself. "I'm going to have y'all work out your parts on your own anyway. Well, Nate I can show you what I did but you're free to change some parts up if you think it sounds better that way, this was just to get some music for the lyrics."
"Alight," Nate said with a smile and nudged my leg with his. "Maybe we can play it at Albright's some time soon."
"That would be... I mean that would be crazy. Play an original song? That seems unreal," I said amazed.
"Well, we'll work it out first and then we'll see. It's a slow song so we'll have to make it sound right," Dan told us.
"How much do you exactly know about songwriting?" Cassie asked laughing.
"Well, I've written songs before but like, nothing serious or anything..." Dan said shyly.
I smiled at him. "Maybe you can show me some of them and we'll work them out. But for now let's work on this, yeah?"
_____
Over the course of the next few weeks I went to Dan's house multiple times a week so we could work this out. I actually went out of the house every single day which was a new achievement and it made me happy, even if that much social interaction exhausted me. At least I was able to fall asleep fairly quickly at night which was something new.
We worked out the piano parts together as we both played piano. I hadn't in a while though, as I didn't have one for my own. I had to use instruments in the band room and my last piano lesson had been years back. I thought I was pretty acceptable at it though.
The other's had to work out their parts based on what we presented them with at band practice.
Dan also let me take a look at a few songs he had written, some of them I really liked.
"And you're trying to tell me it's nothing serious?" I laughed.
"I mean, I didn't really have any intentions with them. I wrote them for fun and they're nowhere near done," he admitted shyly with a slight blush.
"Well, that doesn't mean they're not good. We could work on them and then maybe we can take them up as our songs."
"Do you think?"
"Sure, just because you're not talking about loss doesn't mean they're not good. Our genre isn't 'sad music for depressed people'. Here, this one is about guns, yeah? Don't you think that's perfect for us? That is literally what the foundation of our band is."
Dan thought about that. "I mean you're right. But they really have to be overworked."
"That I am here for," I said with a grin and stole the pencil out of his hand, taking his notebook.
"Hey," Dan protested with a laugh and poked me in the side.
"Hey hey hey, no poking, I'm ticklish!"
Dan continued to poke me. "Oh really?"
"Yes! Stop it!" I laughed, squirming on my chair.
"You took my pencil," Dan laughed, not ceasing his attack on me.
"Alright! Alright! Here, have it back, have it back!" I said and threw the pencil back at him.
He was busy catching it and stopped attacking me.
"Don't. Do. That." I said, panting, pushing back the sleeves of my hoodie.
Dan shrugged with a half-smile. Then he carefully took my arm and pushed some of my bracelets aside.
My heart stopped a beat. Not because there were any new cuts, I had managed to be clean for two entire months now. But because that was a reflex by now.
"Hey, that looks good," he said quietly.
"It's ugly."
"Well yeah, you cut your arms open. That's not gonna look nice," he said with a small laugh.
"I just hope they will heal a little more than that. And I hope I'm strong enough to keep them scars and not cuts."
Dan looked up, his soft fingers still on my sensitive skin. "I'm sure you are. You're a very strong person, I told you. But I also want to tell you that you shouldn't beat yourself up if you slip."
"I'll try and keep that in mind," I replied with a small smile. "Now, where were we?"
_____
Now with something to do, a new message to spread, I felt better than I had in the past months. I had something to work on, to spend my time and energy on. I knew I should probably spend it on studying for my finals but for the subjects I was good at I already knew what I needed to know and for the subjects I was bad at... well, it was too late on that part now.
Either way I had already been accepted into a political science program at UCLA, given that my grades don't change and that wasn't very likely. After missing my finals last year and thus getting a worse grade than I would have gotten had I taken the finals, the only thing my grades could do now was improve.
Songwriting proved to be way more liberating and therapeutic than I had ever imagined it could be. I liked working on Dan's songs as much as my own and I even took notes with more lyrics that one day might spin into a new song. I knew that I wasn't all that good but I dared to say that almost no songwriter was good at what they were doing when they started. After all, could something so personal and taste-based as music really be judged with good and bad?
But not just music occupied my time. I had also started painting and drawing again, my creativity was absolutely flowing. I figured I could design a cover for my song and that was my next big project outside of actually working on the music.
By the end of March we had completed my song and I presented my band mates with the design for the potential cover I had come up with. It showed an illustration of a boy that resembled Mark greatly, sitting cross-legged and his head hanging down, surrounded by a flurry of colors, I had made it so it looked like there was a glitch-filter over it. It was a color-splosion. For this one I had actually used my iPad, I didn't make digital art often but I had made an exception. It had taken me forever to get used to my program again, but I thought it had paid off.
"Even if the song itself is a sad one, it's one that helped me cope with this situation more than I could have imagined it would. And as it's about Mark I wanted to picture how I saw him," I explained.
"You have a gorgeous imagination," Cassie said with a choked voice as she studied the artwork intently.
"Yeah, beautiful," Nate added with shimmering eyes as he too studied my work.
_____
"Julius, tell me something," I said to Julius as I sat down next to him at lunch one day. My friends were a bit further away, sitting at our own table.
"What is it?"
"How much do you know about recording and producing songs?"
"Me personally? A little. But I have some connections and I do know someone that may or may not be interested in helping small bands produce songs to start out. Why are you asking?"
I grinned at him. "Well, we may or may not be in need of someone that would be willing to help a small band produce a song to start out."
Julius returned my grin. "So you wrote your own songs?"
"Well, we wrote one so far and more are in the works. It's exciting really," I laughed. "Would you be willing to contact said person?"
"I shall," Julius laughed. "It shouldn't be too hard as he's my uncle."
"Oh really? That sounds awesome."
"I'll keep you informed once I know more, okay?"
"Brilliant. We owe you so much, honestly," I told him and stood up again.
"As long as you credit me in your Emmy speech I'm fine," Julius joked with a wink.
"Will do," I replied and gave him the finger guns, then I walked back to my friends.
"Alright, this might work out. Julius' uncle is willing to produce songs for small bands to help them start out. He wants to ask him," I informed my friends as I plopped back down on my seat between Dan and Nate at our table.
"Sweet," Cassie said and clapped her hands.
"Okay, while we're waiting I think we should talk about Amsterdam some more, we've got about a month then we're off. For example, did you know that Homesick Soldiers is playing a show in Amsterdam on our second day?" Dan asked with a smile.
_______________
So, I am aware that this chapter is a bit scattered again, just like the final chapter of Part 2 was. That's because, again, some things just needed to be wrapped up and the foundation for more things needed to be laid. I do apologize if this chapter feels a bit all over the place.
But hey, at least we have now officially reached the end of Part 3, Part 4 shall follow immediately and BOY am I excited about Part 4, it's probably my favorite. It's also the longest so we'll have some fun with it :D