If you really want to hear about it...

Back in high school (junior year, to be exact), I struggled with HCD. So did my dear friend Scott. There could have been others, but Scott and I were each other’s support through such misery. HCD is when you so desperately want to scream into a pillow and simultaneously rid your life of all the phonies, assholes, and tools of the world, and in our case, Mayde Creek. In other words, we were overcome with the Holden Caulfield Disorder (or was it disease?).

We supported each other mainly by listening to the other person bitch about the day, the week, the month. Eventually, we realized our support was pretty unhealthy and at times hypocritical and almost always unloving. So we cured ourselves of HCD, which I think really just meant we quit whining about the people of this world to each other. That’s not to say the thoughts weren’t still there, though. It’s a tough disorder.

Nine years later, and I’m once again reading Catcher in the Rye, only this time I’m teaching it to juniors. (I’ve said this before, but my curriculum this year = awesome.) I love watching my students read. I love to see their eyes change and move and feel as they scan the pages and their minds digest what the words are saying. Frankly, I can’t imagine a better job. Anyway, our discussions have been great, and part of me wants to tell them about HCD and see if anyone feels afflicted, but the other part of me knows how rancid a disorder it can be and I certainly don’t want to pass it on. Because for me – it’s back.

Maybe it’s bad timing. I mean, my job did get cut, and I am once again looking for employment, which is never fun. So it’s probably not the best time to be reading Catcher, if my job didn’t require it. But I have to admit something: I actually left a get-together the other night partly because I was so overcome with HCD, and I think I would have combusted otherwise. I thought I had come so far, and yet reading Catcher has done something to me, despite the fact that I know Holden is quite hypocritical, terribly depressed and in an institution. I know that Holden is not healthy, and I shouldn’t let him influence me. And as I told Matt about this, he laughed and asked how much longer until the book is back on the shelf.

Soon. I love that damn book, but my time with it is about up. I’ve had about all I can take.