Musings

I once had a roommate who was pretty, smart, and successful. However, her self-esteem was almost non-existent. She would date a guy, he would treat her like shit, she would believe she actually WAS shit and deserved to be treated as such, and eventually she'd get her heart broken and go into a major depression. The next guy she would date would be exactly like the previous asshole who'd mistreated her and, although the lessons were abundant, she refused to learn from them. After going through this cycle with her several times, I was really, really exhausted by the drama and monotony of it all, and decided I could no longer live with her. Our friendship didn't end, but it definitely suffered. If she wasn't willing to make some changes and break the damaging cycles in her life (even though that's what she repeatedly claimed she wanted to do), I couldn't stick around and watch. It was just too sad.

The wisdom gained from suffering should push us to evolve. Sometimes the lessons we're supposed to learn and the wisdom we're suppoed to gain are not immediately apparent, but they never fail to arrive. However, if we choose to ignore them, and instead, to wallow in our own bullshit...to blame others for the choices we've made...to lie to ourselves about how "over it" we are...to run from the real work required to be the person we say we want to be...then we deserve to keep being handed the same heartache and misery over and over and over until we are cracked wide open.

Life has bent me and nearly broken me many times. But always, after I get through the pain or anger--which sometimes takes days, sometimes years--I listen. I listen to what is being taught, however difficult. I hunger for the knowledge and self-awareness that, eventually, comes. And I am always, always stronger in the end.

Thoughts Upon Heading Home

Things I haven't done in over a week:

• Cooked
• Loaded/Unloaded Dishwasher
• Kissed husband
• Driven car
• Eaten Tex-Mex or tater tots
• Shaved legs
• Watched TV
• Hugged kid (mine)
• Slept with windows closed
• Played fetch with cats
• Drunk bubble water (La Croix, or similar)
• Scooped cat litter
• Worried to excess
• Done other people's laundry
• Petted dog belly (my dog)
• Gotten angry
• Checked internet gossip sites
• Felt uninspired, listless

The somewhat obligatory Michael Jackson post.

A little over a week has passed since Michael Jackson moonwalked off this mortal coil, and the media frenzy around his death and craziness regarding his will and what will happen to his assets and his children has been just as insane as I expected it would be.

It’s all just sad. All of it.

That cute, soft-spoken, eerily talented guy that so many my age fell in love with when he was just a teenager clearly had a terribly troubled life and self-image, and I suspect he was probably also extraordinarily lonely. The past twenty or so years had not been kind to him as he sank deeper into his bizarre behaviors and became simply freakish looking via the self-mutilation caused by unethical doctors willing to perform too many plastic surgeries. And now he’s dead, and along with a legacy of music and extraordinary performances, he leaves a legacy of utter strangeness that will always be a part of anything ever written or discussed about him. Like I said: sad.

But I have some happy memories that I associate with Mr. Jackson.

"Off the Wall." It came out in 1979. I was 10 years old. I begged my mom to buy me this album, and when she did, I played it and played it and played it some more. I would put it on and dance around the house like a fool, trying my best to sing along. I got thumbtacks and pinned the album cover to my wall (unfolded, it was a head-to-toe photo of Michael. Later, when the album came out on CD, the cover image was of his legs and feet only—surely a nod to the fact that he no longer looked anything like the fresh-faced young man on the cover). The depth of my love for this album and its singer knew no bounds. The following summer, when I was 11, I did a (made up as I went along) dance to “Don’t Stop ‘Til You Get Enough” in the talent show at my summer camp. Those of you unlucky enough to have ever seen me dance know that there was NO talent going on during my portion of the show, however I will say I was probably the most earnest and dedicated performer of the night. My dance—performed on our “stage,” which was set up outside on a flat bed trailer near the swimming pool—was nothing if not a testament to my heart and soul devotion to “Off the Wall.” (I still have this LP, btw.)

Fast forward several years to 1983. I’m now 14, and I’ve got way more important things going on in my life besides Michael Jackson. But the night that the much-hyped music video for the title track of “Thriller” debuted, I was sitting in Lori Williams’ TV room, waiting with her breathlessly to see what the buzz was all about. And we were not disappointed. In fact, we were—no pun intended—thrilled! We were giddy with excitement. It was so cool and groundbreaking and new! MTV replayed it about 100 times in a row, and Lori immediately set out to figure out the choreography in the zombie dance scene. The video seems sweetly old-fashioned when you watch it now, but then? Then, it was the absolute shit.

“Thriller” was on the charts for over 2 years. I never actually bought the album because I didn’t have to: between MTV and the radio, it was everywhere.

A couple of years after the release of “Thriller,” I was on a bus with the rest of the marching band, and we were on our way back to Longview after marching in an invitational competition in Ruston, LA. We stopped at a strip mall that had a couple of different fast food dining options, and the band directors set us all loose to feed ourselves and return to the bus at an appointed time. In this strip mall, there was a K-Mart. A bunch of us went in there and were browsing around to kill the time when, no shit, they announced a Blue Light Special on Michael Jackson “Beat It” t-shirts. They were practically giving them away. By this point, “Thriller” had pretty much run its course and was old news to us, so—as a joke—we all went and bought these cheesy t-shirts and went walking back to the buses wearing our new purchases. Imagine it: Buses full of (primarily white) teenagers, wearing these big, white t-shirts with a full length picture of Michael on the front and big black letters reading “Beat It” running up the vertical length of his picture. We were a sight to behold.

After that, I pretty much gave up on Michael. His music was overproduced and filled with too many grunts, yells and “woo-hoos.” He tried, but was never able to capture the magic of those first two solo albums. His videos got longer and lamer, he married Lisa Marie Presley, and eventually his face became simply painful to look at. And then there were the accusations and trials that firmly planted him deeply in eccentric/creepy/weirdo territory and from whence he was never to return.

But last week, when he died, I made a playlist on my iPod of all my Michael Jackson/Jackson 5/Jacksons songs. I have 17 of them. And I have been singing my ASS off to these songs in my car almost daily for a week now. The Geej has actually been asking for him by name. Sort of. “Mommy, can we listen to Jackson Michael?” (She’s got a kid in her class named Jackson, so she gets confused.) It blows my mind to think that when he hit it big with his brothers in The Jackson 5, he was right around her age. Again: eerily talented. I’ve fallen back in love with “Off the Wall,” and I’ve even added a few songs from “Thriller” into the mix. And when you’re in the middle of belting out the chorus to “Don’t Stop ‘Til You Get Enough” and dancing like a fool in your seat while driving in rush hour traffic, all that’s there is the music and the pure joy it creates. All the other bullshit disappears.

Rest in peace, Michael.

What I Want to Be When I Grow Up, Part 3

And so, what’s the plan? Something’s got to change, right? I can’t be one of those people who realize that things are not as she wishes and, instead of actually DOING anything about it, just complains and wallows in her own self-pity. I mean, I could be one of those people, but I don’t want to be.

I’ve already spoken with BH and told him that I desperately want and need to take some time off next spring/summer to attend some sort of intensive writing workshop. There are dozens of them at universities all over the South, and I want to be there, away from everything that’s “normal” about my life, focused on something that digs deep within this old brain of mine and awakens what is dormant. Now figuring out which one I want to attend, how to submit application/get accepted, how to finance the whole thing, how The Geej will be tended to while I’m gone, and how I’m going to swing it work-wise is going to be what I have to do. And I mean it: I HAVE to do this. This can’t be one of those things I plan on and then never actually go through with. I’m hoping by committing it to writing in this somewhat public forum, that it will not only inform the universe of my intent, but also help fuel my drive to make this happen. Because how much would it suck if I were to drop the ball on this and then look back at this post a year or so from now and have to own up to myself and those who’d read these words about my failure.

Consider this my commitment. I’ll keep you posted on the progress.

What I Want to Be When I Grow Up, Part 2

I’ve read “A Room of One’s Own” and “The Artist’s Way.” I understand that committing to your creative craft—whatever that craft may be—requires dedication and energy. What I don’t understand is how normal people with average incomes and real jobs and families and chores and only twenty four hours in the day can organize their lives in such a way that they actually a) carve out the necessary time and b) have the mental and physical energy to nourish their creative souls. People do it, but I cannot, for the life of me, figure out HOW they do it. The concept of “free time” makes about as much sense to me as advanced quantum physics being taught by someone speaking Gaelic. So what I generally end up doing is making plans in my head that never come to fruition and only end up frustrating me and making me more disappointed in myself.

For instance, a couple of years ago, I told myself that I was going to take advantage of my company’s (unpaid) Sabbatical policy and take a big chunk of time off to get all of the boxes and boxes and boxes of random written documentation of my life—everything from birthday cards to letters from camp to diaries to notes passed in class—organized and catalogued so that I could begin to write a type of creative nonfiction memoir thing. Man, I was excited about this idea. I even had a title in mind for what I wanted the end product to be called. My plan was that I would spend part of my days doing the physical cataloguing and creating notes that would piece together what the narrative of the story would be. My goal would be to capture the essence of that CRAZIEST/WILDEST/FUNNIEST person I’d once been, and tell her story. I’d spend full, glorious days writing, writing, and writing some more. I’d take breaks now and again to work out or go take a swim, but my main focus would be my complete immersion in and devotion to the creative process. At the end of these hypothetical days, I’d go get the Geej from school and then be totally devoted to my time with her without being distracted by the incessant gnawing in my gut caused by my horribly neglected creative muse.

But guess what: none of that ever happened. Concerns over not drawing a paycheck during my sabbatical and the profound negative impact that would have on my savings account coupled with my “what if I start something that sucks and/or I never finish” anxiety aborted this adventure before it’d even had a chance to begin. The desire for who I wanted to be and what I really wanted to do was simply no match for the forced practicality of my grown-up responsibilities.

And now, here I am: forty years old and totally creatively withered. The absence of any real inspiration or creative challenges and outlets in my life has made an internal environment where depression grows like kudzu, wrapping itself around and slowly strangling me. My biggest fear is that I actually AM too old to be what I might have been and the only things I have to look forward to are numbness and regret.

To be continued...

What I Want to Be When I Grow Up, Part 1

I have a magnet on my fridge that says, "You're never too old to be what you might have been." I see it every day when I'm getting stuff out to pack The Geej's lunch or getting a cold glass of water out of the Brita filter or retrieving some ingredients to prepare dinner. To me, the saying on that magnet is equal parts inspiration and frustration. It taps into that constant struggle in my head between the "Practical and Responsible" Karla May and the "Carefree and Creative" Karla May.

This is not a new struggle, mind you. It germinated in my youth, when I walked that tightrope between what I really wanted to do and be, and what I thought was expected of me. Almost every friend's note written in my yearbooks from elementary school on said something along the lines of: "To the CRAZIEST, WILDEST and FUNNIEST girl I know." But what nobody knew was that this "crazy/wild/funny" gal that people clearly saw and identified with on the outside was also overwhelmingly concerned with being accepted and liked, making good grades, and being successful in every endeavor she undertook.

When I hit my teenage years, this struggle tore me apart. On the outside, I was a stellar student, highly social, and fairly popular with a wide array of friends from a bunch of different "cliques." But inside, when I was alone, I was profoundly unhappy, confused, and (I realize now) horribly depressed. I used to sit on my bathroom floor, bawling for hours because I hated myself so much, holding my wrists until my veins bulged, then making sharp, repeated slices with a razor blade until dark blood would pour out. The few times anyone noticed the strange looking results, I blamed it on my very psychotic cat (and those who had met her, believed me).
Now "cutting"--hurting your flesh to somehow manifest and make visible the pain/turmoil inside you--is a commonly known thing that troubled teenagers do. Back then, there wasn't even a name for it. And besides: Why would anyone think for a moment that perhaps crazy/wild/funny Karla May might be hurting herself? It never crossed anyone's mind. But I got through it without therapy or prescriptions or anything like that. I just rode it out and managed to keep going on...making good grades, and being Miss Wild/Crazy/Fun Girl like everyone expected me to be. But I still have the thin faded scars on my wrists and arms from those lonely, horrible and desperate times, and I can remember those nights like they happened last week.

In my early twenties, I had another dark and lengthy period when depression really knocked me to my knees. It was spurred on by many things, but primarily it was that old inner struggle between who I wanted to be (an actress/writer who was taken seriously, took risks, lived life, and had success and artistic fulfillment) and my fear of failure and of "what people would think" of me if I totally went for it (irresponsible, flaky, stupid, untalented, unattractive). For the first time, I sought professional help and took antidepressants. And you know how in "The Wizard of Oz" things go from black and white (Kansas) to technicolor (Oz)? THAT is what taking antidepressants was for me with that first go-round. They utterly changed me and brought me to a place where I figured "normal" people must be all the time. And since then, for nearly 20 years, I've been on (and off) of different antidepressants. And within the past three years, anti-anxiety meds, a hormone replacement drug, and a high blood pressure medication have also entered the mix.

And guess what: Nothing--NOTHING--has really changed inside my head. That struggle between who I am and what I want to do and be--that message on the fridge magnet that greets me several times a day--punches me in the gut with painful regularity. But now, unlike when I was in my teens or twenties, I've made choices in my life (marriage, mortgage, career, child) that seem to answer to back to that damn magnet, "Oh really? Never too old? FUCK YOU. I'm forty, have serious responsibilities, have no expendable income and have 13 hours in my paid-time-off bank. So when the fuck am I supposed to 'be what I might've been'?!"

I am tempted to throw that fucker in the trash.

[To be continued...]