That’s probably why those of us who are just a little fucked up become more fucked up. Twentysomething years ago I was born, a product of a marriage which probably never should have been, and twentysomething years later, after ricocheting between I-don’t-need-anyone and I’m-so-lonely and go-fuck-yourself, after voluntarily leaping twice into the abyss only to be saved by a combination of random chance and an unwittingly rebellious gastric system… I nearly joined a cult.
Well, they say they’re not a cult. They promise you a life of possibilities through some lingo and other shit, most notably a three-day bootcamp and a steep price tag. It was a friend of mine who introduced me to it, who went through it herself, who said it helped her, who invited me to an introductory session led by alum of the bootcamp, who created the atmosphere of trust, trust being something I wanted to do badly but never could.
Inherently introspective I am, being an only child and fucked up and all, and since leaving the cuckoo’s nest for college/life I’ve spent most of my days in vicious cycles of self-analysis. Why am I different. Why does my mother treat me so. What is my purpose. Is there a god. Is consciousness meaningful. Or even important.
You get the picture.
Anyway, yada yada yada, I hit my late twenties. I’ve worked and hated working and quit and worked again and went back to school and didn’t see the purpose in that and am now going back to the work I thought I hated. But at least it distracts me from the messiness of life, right? Avoidance is art. If you can make money at it, then you’re nearly genius.
But it’s never so easy when emotions are involved. I tried to wall that shit off long ago, but let’s chalk it up to being a girl, having ovaries and estrogen, that reverts me back to the same mean. Why can’t I have the relationship with my mother that all movies say I should. How come my problems can’t be resolved in 30 minutes with 2 commercial breaks. I mean, really. Why doesn’t my life conform? This is bullshit.
The state of my relationship with my mother is truly indescribable. Single mothers and the only daughters they raise are supposed to be tight. We’re not. She looked at me and saw my father, hit back, told me I’d turn out just like him, you look like him, you’re passive, you’re stupid, “I only help people who are worth helping”… At some point she stopped badmouthing him so much, after I snapped and slammed the issue up against the wall, but it didn’t matter. I knew how she felt. When your family is fucked up and no one talks to you, you learn how to read minds. Maybe not with 100% accuracy, but pretty goddamn close.
Now I’m not saying my mother is the worst. She can’t be. I’ve taken my fair share of statistics classes, I understand the concept of normal distribution, and therefore I can logically assume that there are mothers both better and worse than mine. But the fact remains that I am completely fucked up, pessimistic, uber-insecure…statistically different from normal, using a 99% confidence interval...
And so when something comes along that promises you the world, you listen. I must be one of the greatest skeptics in the world, but I listened, and almost believed. I wanted the life of possibilities, the transformational experience, the emotional balance, every fucking last bit. I couldn’t see clearly for all the hope welling up in my eyes. I wanted the happiness.
But something about it didn’t feel right. The look in the people’s eyes. The relentless sales push. The revision of personal history. Thankfully I am trigger-slow, and after sending out a distress call to the tribal council, an email returned with links. Cult, they called it. Brainwashing. There were accounts of rape and sexual abuse victims who were told on stage that they were the perpetrators of their own crimes, that they are to blame…there were people who suffered psychotic episodes during the “training”…
Fuck! I didn’t even google it myself. Didn’t take my own fucking medicine. How could I be so fucking stupid…
But thank god that I have a tribal council. Some people fucking suck. But some completely and totally rock. That’s something I learned in college, if not much else. And it was only after my second flight into darkness that I realized that blaming myself for everything wrong in my life, as I had been doing for the past twentysomething years, was neither healthy nor accurate. Blaming other people is justified. Sometimes, shit happens. You can’t control it. Moreover, those people you blame are not necessarily bad people. People make mistakes. I make mistakes. My mother makes mistakes. Such is life, if you choose to live it.
And so after a weekend of rifling through all my baggage, tearing down some walls, building drawbridges in others, slaying some dragons and taming others, I concluded that I can never again weigh myself down and sink to such a depth that I become so vulnerable to a grinch in white knight’s clothing…I decided to let the Mongolians in…and I realized they weren’t Monglians at all… Yes, my relationship with my mother is fucked up. But it is what it is. I can’t change it. What I can do is accept it. I do not doubt my friend when she said this thing helped her. But it can't help me. I owe it to myself to be my own best help.
So you know what? Joining a cult is the best thing I never did. Only two weeks earlier, I was swimming in depression and sobbing every day, like I've always done on and off, since college. But after a few dramatic turns (other than the cult episode, which involve other people, that I will not detail here) and a glimpse into the temple of doom (“kali-maaa….”), I woke up today feeling lighter than ever. Less luggage. Less dread. Kundera suggests that weight is positive. But it’s nice to be light for a change.
And so borne from the loins of my anti-cult transformational experience is this blog. I’ll try to keep the seriousness to a minimum, just tell the true hollywood stories of my life that my friends seem to so side-splittingly enjoy… the ones about family, religion, third world countries, all the weighty shit that people take too seriously. But you know what? Fuck seriousness. Fuck maturity. Just fuck it. I said fuck it. Life is short. Weight is inevitable. But for my sanity, let there be light.
So to parrot Butters, “Thanks for offerin' to let me in your clique, guys, uh but, to be honest, I'd rather be a cryin' little pussy than a faggy Goth kid.”
And remember, you can’t be a nonconformist if you don’t drink coffee.
For background, the episode that inspired it all:
http://www.imsdb.com/transcripts/South-Park-Raisins.html
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