But no one ever said it'd be this hard...
I went to see Sheryl Crow and Pink last night at Dodger Stadium. It was quite the show. Pink was fantastic, with her aerial show and death defying stunts. I can’t believe she does all of that AND sings! Incredible!
But for me the real show was Sheryl.
First the backstory:
Her first album, Tuesday Night Music Club came out in 1993. Which happened to coincide with me being in a two year spiral to the bottom with my alcoholism. This album captured so much of who I was then, the good, the bad and the very ugly. The songs on that album kind of inadvertently became the anthem for my self destruction and annihilation. Sheryl didn’t write them for me, but she did write them with someone like me in mind.
And over 30 years later, the songs still identify and distill parts of me that have taken and are taking a life time for me to understand, accept and assimilate about myself. I still have fucked up relationships with men. While I would really love to claim some progress in this department, my last debacle would assure anyone standing within a 100 mile radius that this particular area got worse, way worse. So all the things I knew to be true back then, sadly remain true for me today. Slow learner doesn’t really begin to describe it.
Her album outlined, at least for me, the power of women, and what a hard time some of us have wielding that power. How often we subsume it, fail to control it, misuse it, acquiesce it, fight it, pretend we don’t have it. So often power is a four letter word for women.
For me, her first album chronicled my own treacherous path to owning my power. And at the time it came out, it showed me just how lost I truly was. And it became an anthem for me, a collection of songs that identified for me the hurt, the pain, the loss and the possibility of redemption.
Looking back now, I can see that while the album and Sheryl’s lyrics helped me so very much feel less alone, I also used them as an excuse for my own self degradation. Kinda like, she has done it and look at her! She survived and I will too, but wait, let’s not get too hasty...I kind of like the pain, so I am gonna keep this going a little while longer.
For me that was almost two years. And depending on what addiction we are counting, almost thirty for others. I am stubborn. I am insightful. But I am also broken in ways that often feel like they defy healing. I know that anyone can heal, they just have to be willing to do the work. But sometimes, most especially in the area of men, I feel like I am somewhat of a lost cause.
Sheryl started the show last night owning that she had never been married but engaged three times. And I think I knew what she was getting at...while she was successful in maintaining her sovereignty, always, she was tempted three different times to give it away. And I totally related to that. I am not sure why any of us who have sovereignty and rights and power and grace would ever want to give that up. Or share it for that matter.
I know now my biggest struggle is to find a balance of power, within myself and what to share with others. I am always giving away too much, or holding back too little, or reclaiming that which I wished I never gave away. It has always been a power struggle to me, and the drinking was just how I dealt with it until I could no longer do that and survive.
Today, I am not sure where I stand. I guess my perennial question is not “Are you strong enough to be my man?” But am I strong enough to be the woman I know I am? And the whole man question is really immaterial. It always has been. It isn’t them that is the issue, it is how I feel about them, what they take from me, what I allow, what I accept that has always been the problem. And, sitting here 30 plus years later, I can honestly and truthfully report, I am not sure. I don’t know if I am strong enough to be the woman I am supposed to be. But I will tell you this, apparently I am gonna die trying. Because no matter what, I keep coming back to this place within me that demands and commands a self respect that frees itself from the snares of self abuse, destruction and addiction.
This isn’t the path I wanted, but it is mine all the same. And I own it. And I embrace it today. I am evolving...instead of always run, baby, run, baby, running.
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