Chapter 26

Living at my brother's house has been a good thing for me. It has given me a chance to get away from the hell I was in and collect my thoughts. I know that this is a huge change for me and I really don't know how to handle it.

I decide that the best thing for me to do is channel every bit of energy into the new band. Thinking about that allows me to not think about the rest of my life.

We practice quite a bit which is awesome.

I have really given up on my yellow page job. I rarely show up for work. I just can't get myself to go out and talk to people about business when I am hurting so bad. I show up in the morning and then usually leave and go to a movie or go and smoke weed and play pinball at the nickel arcade.

I have been living in my brothers home office. It has a glass door so my nieces have been calling me the boy in the plastic bubble. I know that at some point I have to move.

Luckily for me my best friend Tom asked if I wanted to get a place with him. He was living elsewhere but he stepped up to help me out. He is a true friend.

We get a condo and it feels good to be back in the mix with my friends. I spent so much time away from everyone because of my ex-wife. She just didn't want me hanging around my friends.

I actually get to have a nightlife once again and I jump all over it.

I start living this double life.

One part of me is out drinking and partying and the other is the lead singer of a Christian band. It was difficult. I don't let my bandmates in on that side of my life. I hide it from them. I lie.

Guilt.

Here are these guys that have opened their hearts and homes and I can't be completely honest with them. I can't tell them how bad I am hurting. I don't want them to see how weak I actually am. I can't show weakness.

I just can't.

So it just continues. We practice for the better part of a year and write an enormous amount of songs. We are all perfectionists and want to have a perfect sound before we start playing live.

I decide that the yellow page business isn't for me. I just walk out of a meeting one day and I never return.

Probably not the greatest idea.

I start working as a painter for a guy that painted my brothers house. It is a perfect job for me at the time. I get to smoke weed, have a couple beers and just think.

My life slows while I paint. It is soothing. I loved it.

Unfortunately it didn't last for long. The painter decided to move on without me. I was without a job.

I got a temp job as an office assistant at a call center for a major bank. I delivered faxes and basically do busy work. It is perfect.

It was at this job that I found the absolute love of my life.

From the first moment I saw her I seriously fell in love.

I just wish I had never met her.