So I guess as we move along, and I become more content with this being a spot that isn’t about writing “articles” or even “blogs” but more an open therapy session for myself that I’m willing to let others read (should the choose, there are no expectations of such), I can just slide into the confessional seat more and more.
Today I caught myself going down the backwards road.
It should have been obvious why. I was playing on my phone, and someone had posted a link to some Olivia Newton-John stuff, and I jumped into that pipe and followed it back. I’ve had a celebrity crush on Olivia since the first moment I walked into a theater and she was singing “Hopelessly Devoted To You” on the screen (we had arrived late). My mom attributes Olivia in the skin-tight pants at the end of the movie to the moment my testicles dropped (I’m kidding, my mom isn’t nearly as crude as I am), but it was all about the pony-tail and the sweater and the sweetness for me. That held me through Xanadu, and then her other 80s stuff (Two of a Kind was fun, but it wasn’t nearly as sweet). I listened to her modern pop stuff, but my mom had her older Country albums. Clearly Love. That kind of thing. So I listened to those on vinyl as much as I did the Grease and Xanadu soundtracks on 8-Track. Probably a lot more than Grease actually since she wan’t on a lot of the songs on there.
A couple years ago, Juliana Hetfield did a covers album of Olivia’s stuff, and it included a lot of the older stuff. It’s a really great album and winds up getting replayed a lot by me. So it touches my nostalgic side (on two fronts actually, since i listened to Juliana in the 90s too), but is at least not technically me listening to the same stuff from 40+ years ago.
So yeah, you’d think that would be the link, right? Take me back to my youth. Sing along, ride back in time. But no.
The trek actually took me to listening to one of the tunes, singing along (I sing Olivia stuff rather well. For me. For my voice, which isn’t impressive, but I can hold a tune and a note more often than not). And I think about Scary Pockets, the band that does funk covers of other popular music. Jack Conte’s band outside of Pomplamoose, who I also love. And I am trying to let myself dream things and imagine things and explore even the silliest of ideas and wants and wishes. So I go from this song that Juliana has covered of Olivia, to wondering what if i met Jack and had the opportunity to suggest a tune for him to cover (the song is “A Little More Love,” which I didn’t hear nearly as much when I was younger as most of the other songs on the album). And then, because I’m singing along, I think, what if Jack asked me if I wanted to play or sing in the cover.
Ridiculous. Absolutely unfathomably silly. But like I said… I’m trying something here.
And then I feel it shift. I go from the idea of picking up a guitar and feigning like I could be a part of this amazing band for a moment in my mind’s eye to a memory. A memory of when I was first trying to learn guitar, and I was dating this girl who wanted me to dance with her (not in the moment of the memory, but at some future point). And i have always been steadfast that I DO NOT DANCE. Ever. At all. Not even for a giggle. I’m not wired for it. Can’t be done. The slow dance “waddle” is the only thing I’ve managed which I know disappointed the hell out of the sweet girl I took to her prom. My excuse to this ex- of mine at the time was that I didn’t have rhythm. And she called me on it. She said, “How the hell can you expect to be a guitarist if you don’t have rhythm?”
It’s a good slam. I was unprepared. I wasn’t accustomed to being called on my bullshit in quite that way. And while I realized years later, like how you go back to old arguments and now you know exactly what you should have said to win the point, that what I didn’t have was coordination. What I did have, and still do have, is a lot of anxiety about it. So I start editing the memory to “fix” what I’d said and make a more reasoned point.
And then I realize what I’m doing.
I have taken myself out of the dream/wish fulfillment thing. Like that’s gone entirely at this point. I have also taken myself out of the simple pleasure of singing along to Miss Hetfield and her amazing rendition of this song that should just be enjoyed on its own. And I’ve instead put myself into an imagined speech to a literal ghost (my ex-girlfriend, very sadly, died several years ago) to prove a worthless point about a thing that doesn’t matter in the first place. The whole thing exists only to make myself be able to explain the discomfort I feel existing in my own body. It’s explaining away my failures as a person, that’s how I see myself in my own mind.
I went from “you seem pretty cool, you want to do something fun that could fulfill one of your lifelong dreams” to “you’re a loser than can’t even do the most basic things like dance or defend the reasoning that you don’t dance” in the span of one chorus.
And THAT is what I’m trying to challenge myself on right now. I don’t think I knew precisely how bad I am at just existing in my own form, how much I can’t stand to just “Be” me, when I started writing here six days ago. But it seems pretty fucking obvious now.
What’s not obvious of course is how I find my way out of this. This head trip has been going on for a long time. But that’s exactly part of the problem. It happening for a long time is still looking back. I have to adjust to look the other way. It’s not “why haven’t I been able to fix this so far? What kind of damage have I done to my psyche?” It’s “what do I do now? Tomorrow is something else, how do I face it in a new way?”
I swear to god, I’m not writing a self-help course. I’m just trying to figure some shit out. So I can write a comic book.
Also, this is day seven of my doing the journal. I think I said something about a “prize.” Not sure what that is yet. A new way of thinking though… that would be a solid “win.”
