tiredofvampires

All I can do as their mum is speak out and say what I think is best for them as I always have their best interests at heart but at the end of the day, it's their life and I cannot live it for them...they have to live it the way that they want and I have to understand that and support them in their decision. I guess I don't get it.

You sound like a great mom, one that many of us (substitute my dad) would have wanted. You "don't get" what? Parents that aren't enlightened enough to understand that their kids HAVE to make up their own minds at the end of the day, and support those decisions, even if it's not what they had in mind? I wish all parents could not imagine the kind of parents that try to mold their kids into THEIR idea, leaving them without a self-identity, terrified of screwing up, and feeling unlovable because of their choices.

Yo, one more time --

I am just listening to your music and you're great! Very versatile! And why can't you find a low-key lounge or supper club to gig at right now?? Forget the band thing, you can do this solo! Way cool stuff...

Hey there again, CG --

Now I have had a chance to really read more thoroughly through this thread, and a lot of people have voiced some really good thoughts and advice, including that you see this time as your rite of passage, so to speak -- and that when you come out the other end, you will have waaaaaaaaaaay more insight and steely strength than most people, that will be your edge, your ally, your most attractive attribute!! I love men who have gone to hell and back and come back a better man for it (so in the girls area, which you don't need to be focusing on now, know that this will make you a very caring, empathic guy some day to a very sensitive and appreciative woman who is not just shallow!) Not to mention as others have said, all the mentoring you will one day do for younger kids who are lost, when you see yourself in them, only you can say "been there, done that". You gotta go through the hazing first, though...

And on that note, I'd like to take up where I left off with a more practical post: I think the idea of looking for jobs in a music store is a great idea, but to take it a step further: Do you think that you could teach beginning guitar to students at a music store? That's where a lot of the music classes are here. You could that way earn money AND be in your field AND a major side benefit would be that you might be able to use a practice room or something to play your drums, or even play your guitar on any amp you like. That way, until you get enough cash to put a roof over your own head and move out from your mom's, you will have work and personal play time on your own terms, with your music -- and teaching will be a great boon to your mental state. There is nothing like helping another person get better at something to feel worth something in this world! I don't know what the going rate is for teaching there, but here it is pretty good! (at least a buck a minute, for a minimum of 1/2 hour!) Once you get a good rapport with staff at music stores (if you haven't already), and are a teacher there, you can get anywhere, respect and connections-wise. That's how my first love started, and now he is a professor in music (though he still does his own creative work.) One thing leads to the next, but at your age with your skills, you could be great at teaching (many people with ADD are outstanding with people and teaching), and maybe you won't need to do a formal resume, you'll just need to bust out your axe and show them some licks and they will be ready to put a sign in the window saying, "GUITAR LESSONS HERE -- REASONABLE PRICE!!" You could even start lower priced, just to get your foot in the door.

I'm so excited for you, there are so many possibilities for you! Again, I would kill, myself, (um, not "kill myself", lol!) for some lessons...if you could convince me I wasn't too old!

You could then advertise also (or alternatively) for private lessons at your home through a cheap personals newspaper or other publication, such as Craigslist. So you can start even before you get the status of a guitar store in-house teacher thing going. My high school flame (the professor guy now) had students come over to his pad, $25 a pop when he was 17.

Ya think?

P.S. God, I wish I knew how to play guitar!! It's the one thing I BEGGED my parents for, for like 10 years, and my father FORCED me to play piano, which made me end up hating life...I didn't go to college for a while just so I could work for my first guitar (which I didn't end up going far with, as this was the period I was suicidally depressed and then I went to college to try to do something with my life...)...but just wait...someday, I'm gonna teach myself to play even though I am turning into an old crone and won't look that hot onstage, lol!

If I lived near you I'd have to say wait, you can't go -- teach me to play!!!!!

IT'S NOT OVER TIL IT'S OVER

Listen, guy,

When I was right near your age, I wanted out, too. I have been there.

I know that you get to a certain point where other people's problems being "worse" don't matter at all and are irrelevant. There comes a point where evaluating all the "good thing" and "people who care" starts to only ring hollow and in fact make you more of a failure for not being able to care anymore or being ungrateful.

I will tell you that there are 2 things that helped me go on, when I realized them:

1. Since there seemed no more point in anything and going on...strangely there was also no more point in NOT going on. What the hell do you have to lose at this point? You feel like you've lost everything, well, so then LIVE FOR SHEER CURIOSITY. Think of your life as a movie (albeit a bad horror flick) that you just have to stick around for to see what the hell happens. Get outside of YOU and just witness your life as a series of events moving in an unknown direction. So, you can decide that maybe you will just go "along for the ride" now and give up attachment to what the current pass/fail brainsashing is telling you. There is no pass/fail here with this life. It is now just down to observation and being open to the mystery of what is around the next corner. This part is about letting your mind release itself on the grip of thinking you have to find meaning, but just becoming FREE TO WATCH AND SEE, BECAUSE THIS IS YOUR STORY AND THERE IS MORE TO GO. Wonder. Wonder what it will evolve into.

2. So this is the othe aspect of that, which is more about the heart: Out of the abyss, I found that I could see my life as a question, a journey. A quest that only a brave traveller would attempt. And that for some reason, I was given a ticket to this desolate and at times tortuous journey, but that I could be hero of this uncharted passage. I could choose to be the hero of my own warped epic -- because here is the clincher, if I give into death and self-destruction, WHOEVER AND WHATEVER THAT MADE ME FEEL LIKE THAT GETS TO WIN!! Can you let "the enemy" win???!!! They/it will have the final laugh if you let that happen! This is your fight and how dare they disarm you. Think of the programming and experiences that have gotten you to this point as internal terrorists that you cannot surrender to. No, you have to fight back with all you've got, even if all you've got now is nothing more than a stubborn refusal and no better reason than not wanting them to have the last say over your destiny.

3. Finally, this one I learned only much, much later but I use it today when things look deadly dark: you think you ARE your life, and your mind. I know this sounds weird, and I don't know what your spiritual inclinations are, but all of your perceptions are just a bunch of electrical sparks going off in your head. And when you break those down under an electron microscope, there are only molecules and then atoms and then empty space there. You feel like you exist with these SOLID problems, but they are only as changing and fleeting as the comings and goings of stars being born and suns blowing out. Every breath you take is a new one, the last is gone. Every breath you will take is a moment yet to happen. And each moment is UNPREDICATABLE. And unreliable, and inconstant. Everything, everything, is always in perpetual change and motion. This breath you are breathing will arise and fall away and every thought you are thinking will arise and fall and turn into something else. Watch EVERYTHING in nature, and see that nothing is static -- it is the nature of existing that NOTHING STAYS. Which means that for all this talk that you are "only 19", yes, it doesn't really feel helpful to hear that because RIGHT NOW is all that matters, but when you telescope out and see the changing nature of everything, you will see that ahead of you are GUARANTEED CHANGES BECAUSE OF THE WAY NOTHING EVER STAYS THE WAY IT IS. It is merely a perception that things are stuck and too far gone that you lose sight of the fact that anything can change -- either slowly or on a dime -- just the way reality always goes. You can guarantee for SURE this is the one promise life will give you: that in 1, 2, 5, 10 years, you will be a different human being and when you look back, you will not even see this time in the same way.

Now I am looking back 20 years later...and I am glad I stuck it out. Someday you will be saying the same, trust me. Just go forward with a blindfold, knowing you have no reason to do so except that it is only a frame of mind (remember, a whirl of electrical impulses) you are in at this moment in time -- and nothing more. Someday, you will want to look back in this photo book of your life and be grateful you were hero enough to stay.

First, in reply to men posting that women don't know men have ulterior motives if they play the friendship card -- we women are not that clueless and naive. If I have a male friend (and I am one of those that does find more in common with males as friends often), and he has an agenda, no matter how patient, innocent or stealthy he thinks he's being, I can ALWAYS tell. I ALWAYS KNOW which men are hanging with me with no romantic or sexual hopes/interest at all, which ones have that element but would settle for just a platonic friendship regardless (and I know and HAVE such cases to point to in my life as living proof -- so this does exist!!!), and which would ultimately not be interested in a serious friendship-only if they don't get into my pants. Never, ever underestimate a woman's 6th sense to know all of this. So the deal is, those in the first category should NEVER pose a problem; the other 2 types get the benefit of the doubt until their intentions are revealed. If they are the third type, those types will drop out of my life when I am hitched with a bf. So basically, if I'm taken, any dude (past, present or future, it doesn't matter, as I expect to be meeting people and for my life not to be over for hopefully another 30 years at least and that's a lot of time to meet cool people of either sex) that expresses a desire to be friends gets a chance to prove it -- and if he makes an inappropriate move, and won't take NO, then he drops out of the picture. The point being, I give 'em a fair shake when I have a bf, and if they prove their mettle as pure friends whatever else they may have felt, there is no harm or threat. A woman knows from the get-go (usually) which guy is going to take NO if and when the time comes and which won't.

And IF that time comes...it's up to the woman, not you as bf, to get the guy to back off. If she can't do that, you as a bf can't really do much except talk with her about what is wrong within the relationship, as there is something at that point (which you may have contributed to, sorry to say; unless she really does have ongoing commitment or boundary problems of her own.)

I feel like I'm a small, lonely minority here it seems...but it is my belief that 2 people choose eachother. Every day is a choice, a free choice to re-chose the one we are with and love because we don't want to be with someone else, it's as simple as that. We choose to be with them even with a world full of temptations, opportunities elsewhere, and potential contenders. We are here to accept the fact that there will always be these situations we have no control over. We are NOT here to put a collar and leash on eachother so to keep our SO safely on our "property line" like a dog. To me, that is not a function of love, and even less, trust. I don't care how many wounds we all carry of past betrayals, and the accumulations of insecurity (which I have my great sahre of), or primitive impulses -- even if I have sympathy for mine and my partner's discomforts and want to reassure them, it doesn't EVER make this kind of behavior GOOD, about love or trust. You can rationalize base creature emotions, but I think it's better to choose a truer form of love and trust. I believe it can be achieved if one wants it badly enough. It depends on what level of intimacy and freedom and loyalty you aspire to in the relationship, your priorities. IMHO. If the collar and leash thing works for both parties, those are the priorities that make some happy, but not me. It would not make me happy or secure for my guy to shun other women beacause of "what ifs" -- I would would not be happy unless I knew he could see other women just as other women (even friends, even pretty ones), but chooses ME.

Unfortunately, I'm not happy being alone with my principles, either...