Coming out...as annoyed.

In honor of National Coming Out Day (Weeeeee!) I am making the first part of this blog purple, and coming out to my friends and family, FINALLY, as extremely annoyed.  To continue.  


Between trying desperately to keep up with the Kardashians (how does anyone do it?!?!?!), failing that, and watching Friends re-runs, I have not posted my signature, extremely hilarious, excruciatingly entertaining, painfully funny blog entry in quite some time.  For that, I apologize.  I mean, with all that is going on in news and entertainment, the fact that I haven't written a funny blog lately is kind of like...the idea of me being in a karaoke bar with you, and not just rocking the ever living shit out of Shoop by Salt n Peppa, and thus bringing your heart crashing down so far you are looking up at rock bottom. 

                       I don't know what this has to do with Shoop, but the words "smooth black skin" seem to always draw me back to this picture.

But it has provided me with a great deal of fodder with which to play with, and thus, entertain you with.  And for that you should be quite grateful.


First off, I saw the movie Bridesmaids, and while it filled me with joy to see great actresses rocking a great script by a great female writer/actress, I couldn't help thinking that this is 2011, and this is the first time I have seen anything remotely true to what it is like to be a struggling, emotionally haywire, yet fundamentally good-natured and misunderstood woman (something I may knwo something about).  The narrative centers around some of the difficult, most-stress inducing months of her life, and her resultant, less than cool-headed response.  This is something we have seen AD-NAUSEUM with male characters in movies, with the John Cusacks of the world gaining international fame, money, and most importantly likability and emotional relevance to their viewers. It's easy for anyone, man or woman, to relate to these guys.  Complete emotional immaturity? Check.  Attraction and addiction to the wrong people? Check.  Decisions based on superficial, fleeting, and reactionary rationale?   Check.  Capability of securing a a booty call but not maintaining a loving relationship?  Check.  Penis?  Lemme...check...

       I'll distract him with my sexy eyes, and then the purple dildo is mine!  It'll match my doublet. 




I presume studios think of stories about men as having the capacity to be universal, while stories about women have a clear "target audience."  I suppose this is a contention that may have some evidence.  Plenty of women and men have told me that the Holden Caulfield is totally relatable, yet I can't say many men have felt the same way about Elizabeth Bennett.  I think Bridesmaids breaks that mold.  Anybody could relate to Kristen Wigg's character.  How many times have I had an actor from Mad Men as a steady fuck-buddy with a cute foreign cop following me around?  More times than I can COUNT.  I AM ONE WOMAN, PEOPLE!

In all seriousness, the movie does something I honestly haven't seen before.  And that is, for lack of a better word, AWESOME.  There are three movies I have always wished there was a female equivalent for, and this is a start.  Basically, I have always wanted a female-centered:

1. High Fidelity.  It is really kind of awesome to think of a nerdy, urban, hobby obsessed, self-defeating 30-something WOMAN tracking down her exes to figure out what is wrong with her.  However, it may not be as delightful as HiFi, considering the responses from men I see are either A) terror B) indifference (and thus, no response or C) man-sobbing and readiness to list every CONCEIVABLE flaw with this woman, complete with physical and sexual shortcomings.  It might lend itself to a nice moment of "Can't you just say 'Fuck You" like that chick in High Fidelity?"

2. About a boy.  This one is way trickier.  I think most people would find a completely emotionally cut-off woman living off of her inheritance and deceiving men with a cool apartment and a series of lies might be a little upsetting, but I think it would be absolutely hilarious.  Of course she would have to fall in love with an actual good person in the end and come to some realization about...something, but HEY. In the meantime we will get some awesomely uncomfortable scenes of her lies unravelling at nice dinners, and the befuddled men who can't believed they were duped out of sex, but we'll know which ones are shitty when they just don't care.


3. Rushmore.  Sure, people might be a little creeped out by a fifteen year old girl practically stalking a male teacher, but after people were okay with The Professional, they need to fucking get over anything else.  That was a great movie BECAUSE it had unconventional expression of sexuality in it, not despite it.  Anywho, I would really like to see a dorky girl fall in love with her sweet, compassionate teacher and then go about her feelings in every wrong way possible.  You know...just because.  Not that it happened to me, personally...or anything.


But, despite the success of Bridesmaids, I will probably have to suffer through some more cinematic constipation, resulting in the Kate Hudsons of the world lamenting not being appreciated in their advertising jobs while Matt McConaughey won't marry them at the exact moment they decide they need to be married.  Or watch Carrie Bradshaw take the feminist movement back 30 years with Sex and the City 14.  Or maybe I should just accept that it is not the gender of the character, but the relevance of the character to the viewer's life.  It isn't about male or female, but good writing!  Yeah!  Who cares if the ratio is off, and I mean WAY off, as long as good movies can still get made, who cares!  That's what matters...good writing!  YEAH!


Or maybe I should just reconsider that penis...

                                                                     I do look damn good with a mustache.

5.

Ima shake you off though 
Get up on that horse and 
Ride into the sunset 
 Look back with no remorse 


Four years ago today, I, as a somewhat embarrassed and awkward (acne-ridden and a bit overweight) super-senior, started a blog with song lyrics, followed by an explanation. For reminiscence sake:


I've seen fire, and I've seen rain. 
I've seen sunny days that I thought would never end. 
 I've seen lonely times when I could not find a friend. 
But I always thought that I'd see you, baby, one more time again. 


I think everyone experiences all of these things in their lifetime. Little did I know I would experience them all in the span of one, single year. 


I continued. I explained how strange it is to have a sting run through your body at the mention of a certain day of the year. My date is September 26th, 2006, the day when I jumped headfirst into a distorted world of psychosis, floated and dreamed and gurgled for meaning and beauty, so far from coherence it is amazing to think I freestyle swam with Phelpsian speed back to reality. Unsurprising, however, that I drifted in and out of that world for the remaining few months of that dreadful holiday season. In this essay I explain how the friendships I had built anew, along with the old ones that I had strengthened over the course of this nightmare were keeping me afloat, and I express my immense gratitude for this gift. I still acknowledge this gift as I did four years ago, but finally feel deserving of it.  


Rereading this blog, because the experience and reflection on it are still relatively precise in my memory, lacked a lot of surprises despite the odd comfort and affirmation it brought my afternoon. However, one sentence jumped out at me and my heart, eliciting compassion for my 22 year-old self, along with pride for my 26 year old one. 


"I would never say that I am glad that happened, but I will say that not everyone gets the opportunity to have such a profound test of friendship, and those of you who still brighten my everyday, who make my life blissfully worth living must know how amazing you are." 


It is odd that I thought I would never be thankful for the enrichment that moment brought my life, how it shaped me, how it not only tested my friendships but tested the deeply embedded strength I had pooled and kept on reserve for so long. And that strength won in spades. How amazing it was as well, despite all of the evidence and doubt coming at me from every direction, that I never imagined any other course of events happening, that I bet on myself against all odds and I came out on top. How amazing I was. 


Five years later I sit with new lyrics looping in my head, those of CocoRosie and the song Werewolf. Once again, because they bear repeating. 


I’ma shake you off though 
Get up on that horse and 
Ride into the sunset 
Look back with no remorse 


This song describes an incredibly painful journey away from a person, but while the pain seems to sear her, it is a journey and a song decorated with moments of pure and delicate beauty. Precious beauty, that without the stings and stabs of the journey itself would be depleted from the mind's eye and muted to a dull grey. I always felt abandoned by the people I lost during the death of my former life that this experience precipitated. Many people left my side for simpler, prettier pastures. But my journey was away from that day, not those people. I resented the day and refused to see the colors that had finally appeared after the day was over. I wanted to never think about what had happened again, and acknowledging the world it had opened up, no matter how gloriously beautiful the things I could finally dream about and see and think, would only remind me of the life I had lost. Speaking about what I had seen on my journey was not an option. I could no longer be the crazy friend everyone worried about. So I dove head first into the written word. 


I am the great mathematician, dividing my words into even, manageable parts with no remainder. That is my sanctuary and my prison cell. My vocal chords tighten, loosen, and then disappear out of my sensual consciousness. I am given sights, sounds and speech to squish, remold, and repackage; the raw materials become the description of humanity I intend them to be, "humanity" still being a persona I feel removed from, outside of. I swallow, close my eyes, and open them, waiting for the words to come to me. Waiting for their illustrative caress. 


In a dream I was a werewolf 
My soul was filled with crystal light 
Lavender ribbons of rain sang 
Ridding my heart of mortal fight 


I used to pray that this dream would come to me, make my experience clear, reveal my purpose from God and I would be healed. I would bask in the calmness and sanctuary of this knowledge. I realized something today. After the trauma of believing my friends were in danger the night before occurred and I escaped to my familiar, physical and mental sanctuary of my best friend, the new trauma was once again healed by the presence of Jackie, the sleep I finally got knowing she was near, and the cleansing and familiar bath I had taken in Jackie's house so many times before after so many traumas: that dream already happened. It was filled with crystal light, it had lavender ribbons pouring over my body and all around me, I no longer had to fight anymore. It was that day, September 26, 2006. I remember beauty emanating from every sight and radiating through me. I remember infinity opening itself up to me. I remember the power coming from my heart so forceful I doubled over: everything about me is exactly how it is supposed to be because it is exactly what it is at this moment, and every cell is throbbing to keep me alive because I am supposed to be. My purpose is Meredith Mullins. 


How lucky I was to have that moment open up to me like an origami swan, and how tragically beautiful that I am just realizing it. But how beautiful nonetheless. 
  
I don’t mean to close the door 
But for the record my heart is sore 
You blew through me like bullet holes 
Left stains on my sheets and stains 
On my soul 
You left me broke down beggin for change 
Had to catch a ride with a man who’s deranged 
He had your hands and my father’s face 
Another western vampire different time same place 
I had dreams that brings me sadness 
Pain much deep that a river 
Sorrow flow through me in tiny waves of shivers 
Corny movies make me reminisce 
Break me down easy on this generic love shit 
First kiss frog and princess 


I was so alone, begging for change, trusting whoever would let me. So much sorrow in tiny waves of shivers. 


What I am shaking off today along with the help of my freak funk power duo CocoRosie, is not the hatred towards those who abandoned me. That died long ago. It is not the experience itself, for I thank God for it. Its pained yet sweeping glory and artistry continue to reveal themselves to me, with the powerful symmetry, pattern and cyclical nature of my life being elucidated more clearly with every infinite moment, every expanding possibility. 


What I am shaking off, at long last, is the person that emerged through this day, this other self, who told me for the past five years that this day was wrong and something to be ashamed of, making me wrong and something in this world that just doesn't quite fit. This sieve of my clarity, this voice robbing me of my experience and peace of mind because it came to me through an unconventional path, through an often shamed road less traveled. This person is finally gone. Look back with no remorse. 

Oh in a dream 
My father came to me 
And made me swear that I’d keep 
What's sacred to me 
And if I get the choice 
To live in his name 
I pray my way through the Rain 
Singing Oh happy day

a day without pain

Excerpt from first session with therapist last week:

Me: I really don't like to talk about my feelings. In fact, in most relationships I have had, I have gone months before bringing up anything that is bothering me, and my boyfriend is shocked that anything is wrong to begin with. "You are so good at hiding it" they have always said.

Therapist: Well, if you are that good at it, it is going to be a test for me as a therapist. I am sure that some things will get by me. You will have to tell me if I miss something big.

Me: That is the whole problem, though. I bury things so deeply I don't even know what is making me upset. I talk myself out of whatever it is. Intellectualize my feelings. Then I am just left with the hurt, without the reason.

Coming out
I feel that writing anything that seriously explores my feelings or experiences that isn't a handwritten journal (with a lock and key and a Lisa Frank design on the cover) is not only difficult beyond all reason, but also a bit self-indulgent and whiney. Difficult because nothing I write seems original, everything seems trite and self-evident. When I pick apart the latest pop-culture phenomenon, or deprecate myself to hilarious results (as earlier blogs will illustrate), it is effortless. It is as if those thoughts were just bubbling at the top of my consciousness, and all I had to do was put them in a semi-coherent line. Also, with everything that is whined about on the internet, in the facebook culture of self-adverstisement, who needs more? However, I feel at this point in my life and personal journey of diagnosis, that this method of communication is the only way that I can express to my friends what I am really going through.

I am coming out. Not in the way that my former coworkers may have expected (Rollin and Patrick, I'm really sorry). I am coming out as a person who is in constant physical pain. Some have called in fibromyalgia, I am not sure what it is. But in the past few months, the spotty, extremely manageable pain has reached a point in which it is constantly in my body and on my mind.

People have made jokes about my laziness; my ability to sleep all day and supposed lack of desire to move whatsoever. I have laughed them off, shrugged them off. But let me paint a picture of a woman, who at the age of 21, exercised four hours a day. Appeared in plays. Had a gymnast's body and a cheerleader's attitude. Or even a woman who at 25 woke up an hour before work just to do ballet, walked to work, and then swam in the evening. Well, that woman was thrilled with every moment of physical activity her body would allow, addicted to it, even. And each time she felt enlivened by the cathartic movement of her body, movement that healed her troubled past, movement that represented hope for the future; each and every time she felt sage, she was quickly and violently met with the complete breakdown of her body: the ultimate betrayal.

And that is where I am right now. I miss that woman, that woman I was. But rather than desiring world-class ability in movement onstage as I once did as a 20 year old, or the creative spark that movement brought to my writing as a 25 year old, my goal is clear.

I just want that first day. I want that first day I wake up without pain. I want that day where I walk around, go about my day without noticing a knot in my hand that I can't rub out. I want that day in which I go to sleep because my body and brain is a normal level of tired, rather than that moment in which I finally make myself lay down, with the disappointment of what my body is capable of still buzzing in my head, my body aching beyond control, and the over the counter painkillers in arm's length. I don't even remember what it is like without the pain.

A day without pain is something the healthy among us take for granted; a given part of human existence. The trouble in their lives, or your lives, is real, but very different. Will I get into law school? Will she ever like me? Will I need to borrow money to make rent? Those types of problems I will face in their own time. But I am widdling down my life to something more manageable, as the great movie "Adaptation" describes. Just that first day, and I will go from there.

It is hard to describe to the average person what it is like to seriously dread getting groceries or doing laundry, not because of the tedious nature of those tasks, but for what it might do to your body. It is hard to describe getting so much joy out of dancing at a concert but knowing in the back of your mind what that could mean for the next day's mobility.

I am not equating my problems to the real horrors of the world. I am not asking for sympathy. I just am asking my friends for understanding, and making my goal visible to me and everyone who may care. I also want to begin to chronicle my struggle with this in some way, and maybe I one day I can compile a real resource for those suffering. But for now, once again, I just want that day.