Finery

It turns out that I'm a chronic liar.

I go around telling people, even people who love me and know me well, that I'm fine. That's just how I roll. "How ya doin', Barb?" "I'm fine. You?"

But I lie. I didn't understand this until the other day though.

Let me give you a little background before I tell you how I arrived at the ball all decked out in finery. A couple of weeks ago I posted a blog Q is for Quixotic (read it here). As part of the post, I added a video of John Lennon's song Imagine as sung by the cast of Glee. The song kind of summed up what I was getting at in my post, and when I searched it on youtube and found that version, I really liked how different and heartfelt it was.

I received a couple of negative comments, not about my post, but about my choice in using that version of the song. One person, with all the erudite intelligence of a potato, simply commented, "Glee sucks." My first reaction was, "Christ in a sidecar... I pour my heart out in a post and that's all you can come up with?" I refrained and thought about it a minute. Who was I to know whether or not there was any veracity to her statement? I'd never seen a single episode of Glee.

So, I hopped over to netflix, tossed the first season of Glee on my instant watch queue, and went up to my studio to watch it and work on art.

I was instantly hooked. Apparently I'm now a Gleek. C'est la vie. I've been called worse. It's a fun show, decent enough writing, good music. If it's sophomoric at times... well... show me something on TV that isn't. Besides, it's about a bunch of singing school kids. Duh.

Anyway. Back to the ball and my finery. I was sketching out a design, one eye and both ears cast toward the TV and an episode of Glee. One of the kids belted out a song, tearful defiance in his voice. His father walked in, commented that he was really impressed. Said kid shuffled his feet. The father made a rather vague comment about the kid maybe needing to get some stuff off his chest. The kid looked down at his feet, shook his head and said, "I'm fine."

*cue the drums for Barb's impending revelation*

The father replied, "Nobody who sings like that is fine."

I burst into tears.

Nobody who writes like I do is fine. Nobody who creates art like I do is fine. Nobody who plays the piano and sings like I do is fine.

I'm not fine. I've been lying all this time.

I'm one big walking wound, a massive ulceration of all of the bad stuff that has happened in my life. I write out my sorrow and anger. I paint the madness in my head. I lose my emotion to music. I turn my frustrations into humor.

I roll everything I've experienced into one huge flaming ball of passion, and I channel that into any number of artistic and creative outlets.

But, you know what? I wouldn't have it any other way. I'd rather feel too much and have to find places for it to go, than feel too little. I'm not fine, I'm a gloriously, beautifully fucked up individual, and I like it that way.

I get to live every minute of my life because I've gotten used to that raw feeling (anything less feels like passivity). And that...

... is just fine.