I didn’t intend for any of this to happen. It was
only supposed to be the one time. Just one. Well,
OK...not one time, but one song. But it
turns out that song was some kind of gateway drug, and it got me hooked. I
had to have more. And more. And more. Now here
I am, sitting in front of my computer wondering what the hell has happened to
me.
Hello, my name is Kim, and I am a Little
Monster. I can’t get enough of Lady Gaga.
I haven’t listened to any of my other music playlists for
months; I haven’t even wanted to. I belong to two fan groups and
follow countless Lady Gaga-related accounts on social media. I have
pictures of Lady Gaga on my phone, although I haven’t yet reached the point of having Gaga set as my wallpaper, lock screen, or any of her songs
as my ringtone. (Don’t be too impressed, though. That’s
only because I’m too indecisive to narrow them down to one or two, and I don’t
want to have to keep changing them.) I can’t say I’d win any Lady
Gaga trivia competitions yet, but (thanks in large part to my favorite fan
group) my reserve of random information is expanding quite nicely and on a
daily basis.
I haven’t always been like this. I’m boring by
nature. Or to be more accurate, I’ve been boring for so long that I
no longer remember if I was ever anything else.
- The
closest I ever came to seeing the inside of a club was the one time when
my mom almost gave 13-year-old me permission to go with
my best friend to an “under 21” club. (She changed her mind
because my friend’s mom was only willing to give us a ride there but
wanted my mom to bring us home, and she wasn’t willing to stay up that
late.)
- I
can’t dance to save my life. I couldn’t even get the steps
right to the Electric Slide at my own wedding reception, and since that
was held in a church social hall where no alcohol was served, no one else
was acting crazy enough to cover my awkwardness. So I stopped dancing.
- My
bachelorette party consisted of myself and two tired co-workers going out
for drinks after working second shift. I had exactly one before
we called it a night and went home to crash. These days, I
might have an occasional drink if we’re out for dinner or celebrating
something, but I rarely drink enough to catch even a mild buzz, and I have
never been drunk in my life. (DISCLAIMER: I'm not saying that
getting drunk is a good thing or that it makes you interesting. It's just one of the many life
experiences I've never had.)
- When
my friends wanted me to take them out “cruising”—in our late teen years,
that was still a popular Friday night activity in our area, and I was the
only one with both a driver's license and a car—or to hang out somewhere we really
weren’t supposed to be, my stomach would get so tied up in knots at the
prospect of getting caught and getting in trouble, that I’d soon feel
ready to throw up and would insist on taking everyone
home. Eventually, they figured out that I was just a big old
downer and just started asking to borrow my car instead. While
they were out doing whatever they did, I’d stay home to agonize over what
might be going wrong.
- I
was the first in our circle of friends to move into my own crappy
apartment, which became the party pad every weekend, but I never
participated. I was too busy working full time and self-destructing
my senior year of high school by falling asleep in class. (That
story is a whole other can of worms. I’ll open it eventually
because it’s relevant, but not today.)
- I
get nervous when I go to new or crowded places, or when I attend parties
or events where I don’t know many people. If I’m there with a
friend or family member, I don’t wander far away from them.
- I
don’t do small talk easily. Or any kind of talk, if I'm being completely honest. I do more listening than speaking,
especially when I’m around people I don’t know well. By the
time I decide I have something to contribute to a conversation, it’s
usually moved on to a different topic, so I keep my mouth shut.
- Cities
freak me out a little bit…or more than a little bit if I have to find my
way around on my own, without someone who knows exactly what they’re doing and
where they’re going. I don’t travel often or far, and I almost
never go anywhere by myself.
- I
mostly dress in jeans, sneakers, and t-shirts, I don’t do much to style my
hair, and I haven’t worn makeup since…hell, probably since my wedding in
1997.
Anyway, my point is that I’ve been just about as exciting as
dryer lint for most of my 43 years.
Possibly the most colorful thing about me is my taste in
music. I’ll listen to almost anything—oldies, country, rock, pop,
classical, you name it—depending on what mood strikes me. But by the
time my daughter, Mini Monster, was born in 2007, I’d fallen into a sort of
musical rut. I’d gotten fed up with commercials on the radio,
stopped listening to it, and grown attached to my iPod and its library of
audiobooks and familiar songs. Very little new music made its way to
my ears, and that was pretty much OK with me. I was a new mom at
that time, anyway; I figured I didn’t have time to pay attention to new music
or the artists who made it. I eventually dragged myself out of the
rut, and it was just in time for Mini Monster to start appreciating
music. We share very similar tastes now, not counting certain kid
singers and YouTubers that interest her but give me a headache.
Up until about January of this year, the extent of my
experience with Lady Gaga was that I’d seen a few pictures and heard a little
about her—mostly about her wild outfits, hairstyles, and makeup. I’d
heard about the meat dress, and like many others, I kind of dismissed her as
just another crazy celebrity. I couldn’t have said what type of
music she made if my life depended on it.
I existed in this unfortunate state until about 2016, when I
saw her perform “Til It Happens to You” on the Oscars, and I was sincerely
impressed and moved. My respect for her as a person and an artist
grew considerably, but I still didn’t really pay attention. Why that
song, and specifically that performance, didn’t turn me into a fan right then
and there, I will never understand.
But I know exactly why “Born This Way” finally did.
The way she finally grabbed my attention was completely
unexpected and, to be honest, pretty silly. We were watching a game show one night, Ellen’s Game of
Games. (Created and hosted by Ellen Degeneres, for those who haven’t
heard of it.) On this show, contestants play different games, get
extremely messy, and generally look like they’re having a ton of fun. We
think it’s hilarious. Each game has its own theme song, including
one that Ellen called “Son of a One-Eyed Monster”. We could only
hear a little bit of its theme song over her introduction of the game and the
other background noise, but it was catchy, and Mini Monster and I liked the
sound of it. Since we were watching it on DVR, I asked Non-Monster to back
it up so I could listen more closely and see if I could pick out words, hoping
to google them and figure out what it was called. All I could make out
was, “…right track, baby…born this way...”.
Now, in spite of my years-long musical rut, I had actually
heard of the song “Born This Way” and knew that Lady Gaga sang
it, although I’d never listened to it. I immediately searched
it out, and as soon as I had a moment’s peace, I put
on my headphones and played the whole thing.
I had never before, not once in my life, been brought to the
point of tears by a pop song. “Sad” songs? Yeah,
sure. I’m a romantic at heart, and I’m sensitive, and my emotions
can float pretty close to the surface at times, even if I have gotten pretty
good at hiding them. But I never expected to be absolutely floored
by a song like this. The words just grabbed my heart and squeezed:
“I’m beautiful in my way
‘Cause God makes no mistakes
I’m on the right track, baby
I was born this way…”
“Whether life’s disabilities
Left you outcast, bullied, or teased
Rejoice and love yourself today
‘Cause baby, you were born this way…”
It felt like she was speaking to me—like, directly to me,
about things that I’d felt and been through in my life. I’m pretty
sure the phrase “holy shit” actually came out of my mouth when the song
ended. Then I listened to it again. Then I played it for
Mini Monster. Then I added it to my music library, and from there to
our playlist every time we were driving around anywhere.
Over the next couple of weeks, we ran into more Lady Gaga
songs in random places. On another TV show, “The Masked Singer”, we
were introduced to “Diamond Heart”, which immediately hit our library and
playlist. Then Mini Monster remembered hearing “Bad Romance” played
during a dance party put on by the kids at her daycare, and she asked me to add
that one, too. Then my husband, Non-Monster, on hearing us talking
about Lady Gaga in the car, mentioned that “Poker Face” had been used in the
remake of The Karate Kid. (To this day, I have no idea how or why he knew
this little factoid. To him, she's still just "one weird
chick".) Anyway, we watched the clip, we listened to the song,
and I added it to the list. Soon, I was checking out the rest of the
albums that our new favorites were part of and slowly adding more songs.
Before long, I had created a playlist containing nothing but Lady Gaga
songs. I googled Lady Gaga and read more about her…about her life,
her family, her experiences with bullying, and eventually about the Born This
Way Foundation and their work. I read about her struggles with her
own mental and physical health issues, and her honesty and openness about those
struggles brought me to tears all over again. I finally started to
understand and appreciate what a truly amazing, inspiring, and beautiful person
she is.
That was it. Mother Monster had me, heart and soul,
a fan for life. A brand new Little Monster, complete with a Mini
Monster sidekick. We watched her videos over and over
again. We bought A Star Is Born. We watched the
performance of “Shallow” on the Oscars before we even had a chance to watch the
movie. We watched the interviews. We looked at pictures
and read more articles. I joined my first fan group on
Facebook. I held a Facebook fundraiser for Born This Way Foundation
during Mental Health Awareness Month and bared a little bit of my soul to my
Facebook friends and complete strangers alike when I wrote about my reasons for
doing it. I shared posts on my personal page where I mentioned our
new obsession, and I discovered that there are a few other fans among my
"in real life" friends. (They’re just not quite
as…um…intense about it.) I binge watched American Horror Story:
Hotel and became enthralled by The Countess.
Mini Monster and I were both having a blast immersing ourselves in
everything Lady Gaga. But then I started noticing that something unsettling happened in my mind at times when I was listening to her music without Mini Monster around.
I started feeling like it was kind of ridiculous for someone
like me to be singing along at the top of my lungs to songs about
partying in clubs, drinking so much you can’t see straight, and generally being
a badass woman—a free bitch, baby! and tired of the Scheiße—when I am not and
had never been or done any of those things. Like…who the hell was I
pretending to be? It wasn’t anyone I
recognized. I became convinced that I was making a complete fool of myself. I found
myself using Mini Monster as a cover, almost an excuse for enjoying her music. Like it was only some kind of bonding experience and
I was just going along with it to humor my kid. Of course, that just made me
feel more like a fraud than I did before. I think I've mostly stopped
trying to hide behind Mini Monster at this point, but it might just depend on who I'm
talking to when the subject comes up. I suppose time will tell.
I’d like to be able to tell you that I’ve also since learned
to ignore that nasty version of my inner voice and that I no longer give a
shit what anyone—myself included—thinks about any of this, but I’d be lying if I
did. It still comes back from time to time, as it has in different
ways throughout my life. I doubt I'll ever get rid of that voice entirely, and maybe I’m not supposed to. I think I would be content
if it would just grow quieter over time. You know...start whispering its negativity instead of shouting it.
Spending time with Lady Gaga’s music and communicating with
others who love it and love her, as well as paying closer attention to my
thoughts and feelings, has taught me more about myself in the past several
months than I could ever have anticipated. I decided to start
writing this blog because there’s a lot of stuff in my head that I’ve spent years
ignoring or dismissing as unimportant, and I've come to the realization that I desperately need an outlet for it. Maybe it's a cheap
substitute for the therapy I'm sure I need but haven't worked up the nerve to
seek. I just know that I’m not yet prepared to share all of this with the people I know best because they only know the “me” I’ve been on the
surface for years. They see what they expect to see and nothing
more, and if they suspect that there’s anything else there, they’re not
saying. They’re no more ready to deal with the “me” I’ve kept shut
up inside than I am to drag her out and put her on display in all her damaged
glory, but I feel like my new Little Monster family might just get
it. Maybe they’ll even be able to help me find my way to a place
where I feel comfortable enough and confident enough to let those parts of me
see daylight somewhere other than just in our fan group or in this blog.
Love and Paws Up, fellow Little Monsters, until next time.
Comments
Post a Comment