I sometimes think, if I was on a game show And someone offered me $1 million, Would I be able to identify my emotions At any given time? Let’s play and find out!
Nausea creeps up my throat and seizes my words. Love or panic? Too soon to tell. My stomach flutters and my thoughts are blaring at full volume, The poetry can come at a trickle or a flood, I never really know. I’ve been listening to Taylor Swift’s new album on repeat, possibly developing a complex. I’ve been thinking a lot about what’s possible in life, This is love, probably.
“MOM, CALL AN AMBULANCE! I’M HAVING A HEART ATTACK!” Love or panic? Too soon to tell. Isn’t love a literal heart attack after all? (False and far too cheesy.) It’s 1 am. She calls down the hall with the patience of a saint, “You are not having a heart attack.” I think, She’s gonna feel really silly when she’s driving me to the hospital later. There is a herd of elephants resting on my chest. My stomach flutters and my thoughts are blaring at full volume, They play on repeat, possible signs of a complex. The poetry doesn’t come but the walls are closing in, I’ve been thinking a lot about the earliest I can go to bed without causing concern. This is panic, definitely.
I used to be in love with my sadness and anxiety, I firmly believed that I could not be creative Unless I was crawling Out of the abyss. I think now, Oh to be young and so certain in one’s thoughts! What a difference a year or two makes. Is there a very big difference between all these emotions anyway?
I think part of the reason I like poetry Is because my creative mind often thinks in snapshots, Single images that tell a story.
The reflection of neon lights glinting off wet pavement at night, I fantasize that I’m leaving a night club in the wee hours of morning. In reality, I’m leaving a diner at about 8 pm.
I’m in an Uber with cracked back windows, I swear I see shoe prints on the door beside me. I fantasize that I’ve just thrown caution to the wind and left my life behind to restart somewhere far and new. In reality, I have a sneaking suspicion that, if my boyfriend wasn’t with me, I’d have been abducted. The fear is palpable and I can’t wait to get out of the car.
The sweet, perfume-y scent of a department store, The mannequins are clothed in flowing gowns and the jewelry cases bewitch me with their sparkling contents, I fantasize that I’m dressed head to toe in high fashion, I’m strutting down some nondescript city street, powerful and expensive. “Donatella” by Lady Gaga plays in the background as I walk, That’s right, I’m such a boss that I command my own soundtrack. In reality, I can’t afford any of it and I’m too tired to put on makeup in the morning.
I’ve imagined a white-sand beach with aqua-colored waves crashing against it. Sipping rosè while looking at the sunset through rose-colored glasses. Dancing through the streets of Paris with a stranger, both of us wearing tap shoes. Eating ice cream at the top of Mount Everest. In reality, I’m in bed by 10 pm.
My mom has a phrase that has accurately described my life at various points, especially as a writer. It is the phenomenon of being “stuck in stuckness.” Often, I’ve used this term to ease my anxiety during writer’s block. Part of my anxiety includes “catastrophizing” events. During writer’s block, I might go from “I can’t come up with the words to write right now,” to “I will never be able to write again,” to “What if I’m never able to do any work again?” and finally, drumroll please, “OH MY GOD, I’M GOING TO END UP LIVING IN A BOX!” All roads lead to catastrophe. However, the “stuck in stuckness” idea tends to give me a sense of calm. “I’m not going to spend the rest of my life in this slump, I’m just stuck in stuckness for right now.”
I could see why my conclusion here makes no sense. You might think, “Wouldn’t you be worried about being stuck in stuckness for the rest of your life given how your anxiety works?” You have a point. I have no idea why my brain responds well to this theory of “stuckness.” It just feels like a temporary state. Also, it gives expression to an emotional state that I don’t think I could describe otherwise. My writer’s block usually applies to more than my writing. People get writer’s block all the time but what happens when you feel like you can’t do anything for extended periods of time? What is that feeling? Not being able to give it a name makes it all the more evil and seemingly inescapable. So, I call it stuckness.
Stuckness is like you’re a computer that’s been “Preparing to Shut Down” but can’t quite get there. You’re past the point where can get any work done but you can’t completely turn your mind off to recharge. You have a dim awareness buzzing in the back of your mind that you should be doing something but can’t bring yourself to do it. Your fingers are frozen. Your eyes are tired. And your mind is incoherent.
Spoiler alert: I’ve been going through stuckness this week. I’ve been working through it, still getting things done and keeping my schedule. But it’s hard. Even writing this, I feel like I’m rambling a bit and not getting to the heart of what I want to say. This spills into social situations too. When I was around my friends this week, I felt like I was fluctuating wildly between morbidly quiet and nervously over animated. This is because I’m painfully aware that I do not feel like myself at the moment. In all aspects of my life, I’m stuck in this odd gear that prevents me from fully relaxing and being myself.
I know this feeling will pass, as it always does. I just have to keep fighting through it. The whole reason I’m writing this post is for anyone who feels similarly and might not be able to name it. If naming it brings you comfort, then you might just want to tell yourself that you are “stuck in stuckness” right now. And that’s okay.
*Spoiler-y talk of Beetlejuice The Musical and Joker ahead!*
I saw Beetlejuice The Musical a couple weeks ago at the Winter Garden Theater in NYC. Here’s a quick aside/speedy review. – I absolutely loved it. The music was fantastic and I found myself literally laughing out loud throughout the show. – However, I’m not here to gush about Beetlejuice. I’m here to discuss the trend which Beetlejuice and many other pieces of contemporary art have come to embrace, the presence of a sympathetic villain.
Generally, the sympathetic villain not only serves as the antagonist to the hero or focus of the story, but has a relatable backstory or motives. At the very least, someone could understand how these villains assumed this antagonistic role. They are not purely evil but past experience, usually horrible or traumatic, has colored their worldview and affected their life path in a negative way. Also, I understand that I’m hardly the first person to talk about this and the examples are boundless.
Possibly the most recent (and controversial) display of the sympathetic villain is in 2019’s Joker. In the film, Joker is depicted as a victim of circumstances. He’s thrown into a blender of factors, from a family history of mental illness and lack of access to his psychiatric medication, to being relentlessly bullied. The result is a man who embodies and delights in chaos, creating a cult following behind him. When the movie was first released, there was a lot of discussion about it generating copycats, people who may feel similarly downtrodden and see their only choice for revenge or acceptance being violence. I see the merits of this argument. I mean, there is literally a line in Joker where he says to a talk show host that a society who mistreats the mentally ill gets what it deserves. (This is immediately followed by a riotous outbreak of violence.) I could see people interpreting this scene as a justification for killing or crime. However, I don’t think that’s what the film intended. And yes, I believe intent matters here because it relates to the overall message of the film.
Instead of being a war cry for the mistreated, the film seems to be a statement of fact about how we stigmatize or ignore people with mental illnesses. It essentially presents a window to the audience and says, “Look what we’re doing. Look at what we’ve created. We need to change.” It’s an allegory with a clear message. A similar conclusion can be drawn from Godzilla (1954) and the idea that it serves as a cautionary tale against nuclear war and nuclear testing: “We need to watch what we’re doing before we become the vehicles for our own destruction.”
This sign welcomed guests to Beetlejuice The Musical.
Despite everything I’ve just said, nothing inspired me to take to my keyboard more than the depiction of the sympathetic villain in Beetlejuice The Musical. In this version of the story, Beetlejuice is still a demon but desires to be among the living because he is extremely lonely and longs for friendship. He still raises some havoc but keep in mind, this is a demon whose main motivation is friendship, one of the more wholesome concepts left in 2020. I kept waiting for this to be a joke or serve as a fake-out bid for sympathy to help our demonic friend reach his goals. After all, that’s something the film version would have done. This wasn’t the case. Beetlejuice even saves the Lydia and family from being sent to the Netherworld at the end of the show. A demon redeemed! But…why? What was the message here? There doesn’t seem to be a clear reason.
To be fair, Beetlejuice says at the beginning of the performance that this is a “bold departure from the source material.” Overall, I thought it was a nice change. If I wanted to watch the same plot and characters, I would have just watched the movie. However, if the movie hadn’t existed or I took this musical as an entirely separate entity, I would say making Beetlejuice sympathetic was totally unnecessary. There is no real evil to fight against because we spend a majority of the show either liking Beetlejuice for his humor or understanding some of his behaviors as desperate attempts to escape loneliness. The only truly evil force is the spirit that tries to bring the teenage Lydia and her family to the Netherworld, Beetlejuice’s mom. She is introduced momentarily (I believe in the 2nd Act, but I could be wrong). She then shows up again in the last few minutes and is almost immediately destroyed by her son. The musical, as with the film, centers on the importance of family. Neither were fully about Beetlejuice, but his treatment in the stage adaptation takes away much of his threat as an antagonist capable of destroying Lydia’s family. He is effectively too sympathetic.
I understand our need for sympathetic villains in media today. We no longer need to subscribe to the one-dimensional, mustache-twirling bad guys of war propaganda past. We know that society is nuanced and want villain motivations that make sense. However, there is a delicate balance that must be struck with these characters. When they elicit the right amount of sympathy, that may unlock a theme or message in the work. If it is overdone, you may just forget who you’re supposed to be rooting for.
Content/Trigger Warning: This poem references feelings of depression and anxiety.
I told him his eyes remind me of nature, The way the light brown center spreads out and mixes playfully with the green at the edges. I told him I love nothing more than sitting in his parked car Eating frozen yogurt with the heat cranked up in the dead of winter.
I wake up at 4 am with tears in my eyes, He lays beside me, still sleeping.
He whisks me out on the dance floor. He pulls me in and we move clumsily to “September” by Earth, Wind and Fire. I can’t help but laugh as we sway. It is imperfect. It is wonderful. In that moment, I feel as though I can’t live without him.
I feel a clawing, stabbing pain in my chest. My eyes are a leaking faucet. He struggles to understand, everyone does really. I tell him I don’t get it either. And we sit and look at each other in silence.
We dream of far-off wedding plans. Sometimes we think it will be a grand affair, I’ll have a big ball gown and for him, a smart gray tux. Other times, we think we’ll be content to get married in our PJs.
My voice is hoarse from frustrated screams. Everything feels like it’s crashing in on me at once, even if I’m not doing anything.
I tell him I can’t take it anymore, this indescribable drowning in nothing. His eyes seem darker now. I tell him I know I’m draining him. He says he’s fine. I feel it’s a lie.
He holds me on our weathered couch. We kiss and tears run down my face again. I’m just so tired all the time and tired of tiring others. I look up at him and ask how we’re going to make it through this. He says, “because we love each other.”
I have to say I’m a little nervous, mainly because I believe the title of this blog post is true. I thought a lot about how to start things off. Do I start with a poem? A short story? At the end of the day, I decided to start with me and see where we go from there. My real life, my goals and dreams, informs a lot of my writing, so here it goes.
I’m a 23-year-old woman figuring out how to thrive in this world. I, like many people, did not picture my life where it is today. Though I recently completed an internship at a wonderful magazine, I have literally NO IDEA where I’m going next. I understand that this is hardly a unique position but it’s been a hard lesson to learn that life doesn’t always turn out how you picture it. It’s been quite some time since I had a clear picture where my life was headed next but I always thought I would have it figured outby now. I mean, I’m out of college. That was my hard deadline, right? To think that this might not be true really shook my worldview. I studied and practiced journalism for the last four years. A good portion of my life operated around deadlines, and when the biggest deadline of my life came and went with only some progress, I went through somewhat of a breakdown.
Okay, truth time: In mid-November, I took a position (after my internship) but left after only a few weeks because I was so wildly in over my head and unhappy. I love writing and a big portion of the job had to do with finances. A little more about me: Math makes me nauseous. The people were amazing but the work was causing tremendous anxiety. So I left. That’s been a difficult thing for me to admit as well because I’ve never actually quit anything before. I also think I have a bit of a complex when it comes to failure.
I was born with Cerebral Palsy and use a walker to walk. Growing up, especially in the school system, I faced a lot of doubt. Some teachers doubted I could be included in Gen Ed classes. There were doubts about all of my abilities essentially. Luckily, I have a strong support system and with their help, I was able to succeed. I started taking Honors and AP classes in high school. I even finished college early. I felt like I’d won against the people that doubted me. I WAS VICTORIOUS! AND NOW, what?
These are just some of the people I have to thank for my success in life!
I can’t fail, that’s for sure! I can’t prove them right. But what is success and what is failure at this stage? That’s what I’m working to figure out.
I hope the tone of this post doesn’t come across too nebulous or bleak. There are some things, some important things, I feel I’ve figured out. I know I love to write and I’m at a stage in my life where I can afford to pursue what makes me happy.
I think the best way to end this post is to note the fact that I recently got a tattoo of a phoenix on my ankle. The sentiment behind that is sometimes we have to burn our lives down, purge yourself of the toxic relationships and harmful preconceived notions. From the ashes, you are able to rise anew and stronger. It can be scary because we’re abandoning what is familiar but that’s how we grow.
Hidden Jules 