jakorte's blog

Whitney could have been saved! Whitney’s lonely last few days! Whitney’s final binge!

A plethora of stupid headlines assault me. As I stand in the market line, contemplating with narrowed eyes, zoned in on the blame game, I begin to see something more than lead-lines. I see insulting insinuations, posed by strangers further away from the center of Whitney’s reality than the sun is from us – feeling absolutely no need to pay it any daily attention, and only willing to jump into the fray once brightest sun burned out.

Where were Whitney Houston’s family and friends? I’ll answer that searing question from a personal perspective – certainly of my own conjecture, but real to me nonetheless.

Where were Whitney Houston’s family and friends while she was struggling?
Same place mine: at arms' length, believing my bold message flash rotation:
“I’ll be fine, I always am.”
“I’ve got this covered.”
“I’ve got nothing to complain about, to talk about.”
After 5 years of carrying on about achieved normalcy, 5 years of simply carrying on, who wouldn’t have believed it?
I did.

I believed if I said it all often enough and loud enough, over and over, it would have to be true.
Only one true part ever snuck through: “nothing”: with qualifiers attached, easily glossed over.
Repeated, repeated when I had nothing else to say that would change the situation or help me handle the upcoming. The more I believed, the more I struggled. The more embarrassed and desperate I became.
I stopped talking: to everyone. Except myself in the sternest of voices, “Now is not the time.” “Hold on until this storm clears.” “Just one more day, it will be better.”

How do you slink away and still show up every day?
Very carefully: cultivating space, disengaging, purposefully moving an arm’s length distance from anyone who might glimpse the pitted façade and suspect it in danger of crumbling.
If it were a recording, I’d have a Grammy. If it were a movie, I’d have an Oscar.
Instead, it’s real life, no more remarkable than any other, with only words to explain myself similarly.

It’s safe to say the worst is over now.
This is where the hardest chapter begins.