It’s been a year sense I was visiting my family in Virginia. The twists and turns of life are amazing, frustrating, and rewarding in so many ways.  I was living in San Diego pursuing my music and struggling with my life and past.  Three steps forward four steps back, three steps forward, one step back and so on.  I had had many triumphs over adversity, and to some I was making it.  The lie and illusion of life is a funny dance, sometime we believe that we are leading the dance but this in not so.  The music leads the dancers, and even the musicians.  We are but vessels of the spirit the dwells with in.  Call it what you may but it will not be contained or defined, only directed and accepted. 

I’ve been afraid of the stigma of my disease for so long that I could convince myself that I was normal during mania, and just depressed during the times I could barely get out of the bed.  I can do amazing things in mania. Great works of art, music, and things that will contribute to my fellow man long after I’m gone.  I consider myself a maverick and a visionary, but that could just be my ego.  So I’ll settle for healthy and happy.

When I set out for Virginia a year ago it was only for a few weeks, to help my folks, visit, and play some shows.  The emotion of what followed still haunts me and will for the rest of my life.  My efforts are scoffed at by some, applauded by others, and have forever changed me in such a profound way that I could never express it in words.  I moved home to Virginia with what I could fit in my van, and it was an epic journey.  The trip took three and half weeks in all.  I broke down 10 times and felt that something wanting to try my patience and test my will.  I was confronted with an individual that shared many of the same characteristics as myself and was truly ill.  On the outside there was a facade that could convince me and many others that me had a mastery of life that was a delusion that quickly crumbled into dysfunction when put to the test.  I feel that I have gained strength in the craziest of ways and places, but that is how God works in our lives.

God has shown me a path in this life that I would not have chosen on my own.  I must be a voice for the mentally ill as I speak of my own illness.  This is not an easy thing to do.  It is connected to my family, my hometown, and my culture.  Some people take offence to me condemning aspects of the culture, and yet we become more entrenched in this insanity everyday.  Our media has run amuck spewing venom and a vile misdirected vision of reality, our government has been hijacked and crashed into the institution of justice and liberty for all.  We are becoming the new Rome.  Over extending our resources and standing tall behind the veil of nuclear supremacy.  Multi national corporations and lawyers have taken the humanness out of life and replaced it with a marking campaign spending billions to sell a lie.