A song just came up on my playlist and I felt compelled to write this.

Let me just say right away that I had strange taste in music as a teen (come to think of it … I have strange taste now too). My parents didn’t know who The Eagles were until the 21st century so I’m going to go ahead and blame them for that.

My recollection of all of this stuff is a bit foggy. Under the best of circumstances I don’t remember things well and these were far from the best circumstances.

As I’ve mentioned before, the 18th year of my life was bumpy, so much so that I almost didn’t have a 19th.

Immediately after my near death experience I drove to school and told my guidance councillor what I almost did. Not 5 minutes had passed and I was obviously in a pretty rough state. I told her what happened and she made a couple calls after calming me down a bit. Then we drove to the hospital.

I can’t remember a lot of the rest of the day but I checked in to the psychiatric ward. They probably asked if I’d try it again and I was certainly not in a state of mind to guarantee that I wouldn’t.

Over the course of the next 3 or 4 weeks I talked a lot and spent a lot of time by myself. I had a DiscMan with me and listened to music a lot but not a lot of music. I listened to one Paul Carrack CD for the most part.

Did I “get better”? No, not really. I was depressed and that’s not something that I’ve ever really left behind. There was no breakthrough from my time in the hospital, maybe all I needed was space. High school was a lot of noise, too many thoughts, too many pressures and my brain was ill-adapted to deal with all of that.

I checked myself out and got on with life. My friendships were never the same. Nobody knows how to deal with a kid who does something like that. One girl went so far as to write me a note saying that she needed to focus on her study and couldn’t deal with me anymore. That one still sticks with me.

I’ve had a couple of relapses since, including one close call a decade ago, but I live a very different life now. A rich life filled with excellent people, a fulfilling career and I’ve found a purpose.

The name of that Paul Carrack CD was One Good Reason and the chorus of the title song was:

Just give me one good reason baby
One good reason now
One good reason, I should
I should hang around

I have so many good reasons to hang around now. The darkness is only in the corners of my mind and heart now. Thank you to all of the wonderful people who fill my life with light and laughter.

And thank you Paul for keeping me company through the darkest time.