I had kinda been going through it during late winter/early spring. I had my heartbroken. Before you ask, it wasn’t a guy. It was someone I thought was a friend who…well, wasn’t.
The way things went down really shook me; my image of myself and my self-worth were in shambles and it manifested in a lot of heavy anxieties about how I move through the world. I didn’t feel like me and I was questioning who that person was…
I’m glad to say, I have her back. A LOT of heavy lifting in therapy and a music festival in the desert, and I feel like me again. I was going to sell my tickets to the festival, because in my lowest point of not feeling like myself, I just didn’t want to deal with the hassle of traveling out of state and finding a room - the work of going felt like an insurmountable task. But, my friends convinced me to go, knowing that I love love music, knowing that I love the bands playing, and more than likely knowing that my spirit needed the lift.
The issue between this friend and I didn’t have a lot to do with who I am. It was more about who I’m not. I’m not “the cool girl”. I know you’ve had to have seen Gone Girl by now and you have to know the monologue; “Being the Cool Girl means I am a hot, brilliant, funny woman who adores football, poker, dirty jokes, and burping, who plays video games, drinks cheap beer, loves threesomes and anal sex, and jams hot dogs and hamburgers into her mouth like she’s hosting the world’s biggest culinary gang bang while somehow maintaining a size 2, because Cool Girls are above all hot. Hot and understanding. Cool Girls never get angry; they only smile in a chagrined, loving manner and let their men do whatever they want. Go ahead, shit on me, I don’t mind, I’m the Cool Girl.” I behaved in a way that betrayed this persons image of me. I betrayed the Cool Girl. I betrayed the unspoken contract of our friendship, to always be cool, and thusly, I had to be punished. And it hurt. It broke me.
I put myself back together with weeks of double therapy sessions, talking it over with my real friends, analyzing it from every angle, and screaming along to one of my favorite Alien Ant Farm songs in a crowd of sweaty elder millennials in the blazing hot sun.
Sticks and stones, they hurt
When you shoot them through the phone
And you dragged my name through dirt
And it hurts to be left here all alone
A lot of feelings hit me at once during their set, and it was the first of the day. Firstly, I’ve always known who I am and so many things in my life lead me to that exact moment. My older brother taught me to skateboard before I was in kindergarten—> he bought Tony Hawk Pro-Skater for us —> I became quickly obsessed with the soundtrack and Alien Ant Farm —> being emo led me to my amazing career an my job —> my job where I make good enough money to fuck off to Vegas on a whim, because I wanna go to a concert. I have always been this person. I know who this person. And she’s a good person. Secondly, this person had no right to hurt me and drag my name. And it was okay to be upset by that. But, it was also okay to move on from it.
This is not the first time a man has been upset with me, because I wasn’t the cool girl, or the woman he wanted me to be. It’s not the first time my excess of emotions have gotten me in trouble. Laurie Penny said it in Unspeakable Things better than I ever will, "Of all the female sins, hunger is the least forgivable; hunger for anything, for food, sex, power, education, even love. If we have desires, we are expected to conceal them, to control them, to keep ourselves in check. We are supposed to be objects of desire, not desiring beings." The cool girl doesn’t have wants or needs; she services the needs of men. Opening myself and my heart and my hunger to this person upended the narrative. I can’t say I was without fault in our friendship; I take full accountability for the places where I misstepped - while being fully aware that the reaction was disproportionate to the action and that my real crime was rooted in my womanhood. Fuck the patriarchy and all of that.
If I’m too much, go find less. I know who I am again, and I love her. Oh, and Sick New World was super dope - personal, emotional realizations aside. I wish the VIP area had been set up like it was for When We Were Young, but all in all - it was so fucking worth it for Korn, Evanescence, Chevelle, Flyleaf, Deftones, Incubus, and of course, System of a Down. Had the best time hanging with a new friend, going on random adventures throughout the weekend, and head banging while looking like a babe.