Friday Confessional: I Go Back to Being F**ing Perfect

Wow, it's been awhile since my last "I Go Back..." post. I originally started writing this as a memory-related post, but as I wrote, it took on a tone of a Friday Confessional, so I decided that this week, I would change the format up a little bit and combine the two.

So, this week, I do hereby solemly confess:

If I'm being 100% honest, the reason there haven't been any "I Go Back" posts lately is because I've been way too guarded lately to let anything -- even music -- really get to me, because I was afraid that if it did, I would simply fall apart.

That simple.

Fall.

Apart.

Shattered, like the wine glasses that inevitably slip from my fingers as I wash dishes.

And then, I was driving home from dropping Andrew off at work about a week or two ago (we're a one-car family at the moment... they don't tell you this, but it ain't easy bein' green!). I don't even know what I was thinking about. Maybe I was worried about the rain clouds glowering at me as I crested each hill of Rt. 9, thinking about how amazing it must feel to have a similar view at the halfway point of the Boston Marathon, and how I've really been slacking on my running lately.

Perhaps I was going over my ever-growing "Weekend To-Do Wish List", thinking that there was no way I would ever accomplish everything I wanted to get done, and beating myself up for wanting to get home, do Ripped in 30, go for a run, shower, get dressed, run to Target, get my nails done, take a GRE practice test, make a nice, healthy lunch, read some of my book, clean the bathroom and finally tackle the (I can't believe I'm about to type this, because it's seriously f--ing disgusting) two months' worth of laundry that is currently hiding in my walk-in closet.

All before 7pm.

It might have been the feeling of time slipping away, as I creep closer to 30 and now knowing what I want to do, both professionally and on the side, but not yet finding the motivation to actually go out there and do it.  That feeling of treading water, of not being present or in control of my career, my weight, my relationships, my family, my life.

I suppose I could have been agonizing over the impending reunion with my own mother, with whom I haven't had the best relationship this past decade, and who I've actually only seen 4 (yes, 4) times in the past 7 years, for a maximum of 4 days at a time each visit.

Maybe it was all of it.

Maybe it was none of it.

Who knows.

I sure as hell don't.

All I know is that as I hit the Shaw's on Rt. 9 in Brookline, P!nk's "F--ing Perfect" came on the radio and I found myself in a super market parking lot, sobbing in the manner that gives you a tension headache and basset-hound eyes for days afterward. You know what I'm talking about.

The ugly cry.

And what was worse, I just. couldn't. stop.

In high school, my friend TBB#1 and I used to drive around in her car (was it a Subaru? God, I'm old), code-naming crushes, devouring pints of Ben&Jerry's with wooden, tongue depressor-style sticks and washing them down with Snapple, and belting our lungs out to P!nk. No, it wasn't cool, even back then.

But, much like Matchbox 20, I connected with the lyrics of her songs in a way that made them applicable to my life. They spoke to me and said, "it's ok that your family is nuts". "It's ok that you aren't willing to give it up for free just to get a boyfriend." "It's totally ok that you have no idea who you are yet, and that you're scared that you might be someone different than you think you are."

That sentence makes no sense, I know.

But neither does life, really.

It's 10 years later, and I'm still scared of being someone different than I think I am, especially since every time I start to think I might have figured it out, I go and change on myself. It's like Jekyll and Hyde; I'm Caitie and Caitlin. But even Hyde had some value, because without his darkness, we never would have come to know Jekyll's light. Without the deep, questioning voice of Caitlin, I wouldn't appreciate the lilting laughter of Caitie half as much. They're I'm the same, but different. Two sides of the same coin, both equally valuable in worth. 

And I find myself asking, "Is this normal, or is this schizophrenia?" Because, you know, WebMD is the best thing ever invented for over-thinking hypochondriacs.

As I wrestled with... well, with whatever "it" was -- that phantom ache in my heart that would start to bubble up, only to have me shove it as far back as I possibly could -- there was something in these words:

You're so mean when you talk about yourself; you were wrong.

Change the voices in your head; make them like you instead.

So complicated, look happy, you'll make it

Filled with so much hatred, such a tired game.

It's enough; I've done all I can think of,

Chased down all my demons, I've seen you do the same

that didn't just break the dam -- they released the entire f--ing ocean of emotion.

Over the past few years of my life, I've been creeping, ever-so-slowly, towards self-acceptance, but it's never as easy as they make it sound in chick lit novels or in the 90-minutes of a RomCom. There are too many facets of any single person to be everything, to everyone, or even to themselves. But I'm trying. And I think from now on, there will be a note stuck on my bathroom mirror that simply states the following:

"You're F--ing Perfect to Me"

So thanks, P!nk, for not only getting me through high school, but for reminding me that I don't have to know exactly who I am yet. More importantly, thank you for writing songs that manage to speak to me, saying the exact right thing at the exact right time. That's pretty f--in' perfect if you ask me.

Plus, those Boston stereotypes aren't entirely made up --- I try not to curse a lot on the blog, but IRL I swear like a sailor and truly love me a well-placed F-bomb! Also, you know I slightly teared up when Kirstie came out with it queued up on the finale of DWTS. I couldn't help it!