Little Drummer Boy or Drummer Man?

I'll never forget that Christmas morning and what I felt inside. There was a certain air about it. The kind of air memories are made of, the kind of air that breathes into your soul, the kind of air that changes your course. That's the kind of Christmas morning this turned out to be. On this Christmas morning, my future would take shape. 

This was not just one Christmas morning, but a collection of them. One of the first was when I was around five years old. I got a kids drum set for Christmas. It wasn't just a cool present from my parents who were divorced at this point. It was that, but it was so much more. 

That micro kit molded years of memories for me starting with the excitement of that Christmas morning. Followed by years of passion for music. Long before I ever tried to learn guitar, I was on a drum kit. The first songs I wrote were on the drums. But, I'm getting ahead of myself. 

My drum kit was center stage at the start and implosion of my first band several years after that Christmas morning. I had the knowledge, the passion, and the ego of a rockstar, but I was out-skilled by my band mates (one of them anyway), and I don't like to be told what to do, especially when it comes to my ability to do things. As a tweenage band, we went from fun to full on fight real fast. Like, I mean we were going to physically fight with each other over the band issues. It's funny to me now, but it ruined the friendship that once was between us three. The guitar player is a rockstar to this day and he's a better musician than I've ever been. Shout out to Hot Apostles and Love Stallion. 

That wasn't the final act of the Christmas morning drum kit. In the fifth grade, when I'd almost outgrown this kid sized drum kit, we had some kind of event at my elementary school where each student in my grade set-up some kind of project with a skill behind it. Mine was the drum kit. I don't remember what the goal was, but I remember that my dad and my sister helped turn it into a rockstar stage with lights and all. My dad and my sister were there on the Christmas morning when I got that drum kit. They were there on the Christmas Eve my sister and I had to take my dad to the hospital. 

“Twas the night before Christmas and all through the house” was a maniac episode stirring the air and changing course again. I never fathomed that on Christmas morning my sister would be driving the two of us in my dad's car to my grandmother's house for Christmas Day, but we did that day, because we'd put my dad on a psychiatric hold the night before. I could tell you almost every detail of that (I won't), but like the music written on my soul one Christmas morning, a deep sadness was written on my soul this Christmas morning because there wasn't any Christmas spirit that year. 

In fact, my spirit was crushed. Not just because I had to hospitalize my own father, but because it now meant that we'd spend Christmas without him. It also meant that I'd reached a point where I'd had to hospitalize all three of my immediate family members for mental health concerns at one point or another. Almost two decades later and that still takes the air out of me. At the time, I felt like I had to be a pillar of strength. I felt like I was the “normal one,” but I recognize the anger and judgement in that now. It was also impossible not to be worried that my time would come. I've been taking care of my mental health for a long time because of that concern. 

Because of the clouds of Christmas morning, I'm quicker to say fuck than I'll say crazy. I really don't like that word and I love words. Mental illness combined with substance abuse history and the health impacts of all of that, left me without my parents before I reached forty years old. In some ways, that's a relief for me and I'm not ashamed to say that because it's easier for me to say no now, but in other ways it's absolutely unimaginable. 

Though it wasn't on the drums, I immortalized my parents in my songs, “My Daddy” (a veiled reference to my dad's addiction, recovery, and Born Again Christianity) and “From May to May” (a memorial tribute of forgiveness for my mother a year after she died). 

Now, I'm the Drummer Man (thanks Nancy Sinatra) living to the beat of a very different drum. I'm writing about Christmas morning in June because that's where the intersection of my writing took me to tell you that I've been telling my story through music for a lot longer than I've been spelling it out here. But, the song remains the same, I live with Cerebral Palsy at an intersection with complex trauma, family dysfunction, addiction, and a dose of religious trauma, and I've made an extraordinary effort to live an ordinary life because of it all. Zest might be at the bottom of my strengths chart (can you blame me?), but my confidence and passion come alive behind a loaded microphone, with a story, or a song.