Thank U, Next

Continuing back through the archives of incomplete and unposted musings:

December 2018 - ft some add-ons from 2022

So, Ryan informed me when this song dropped, and initially I was very skeptical. We have very different relationships with our exes. I am on the Cardi B-Beyonce-Rihanna end of the spectrum where I'm taking money, tossing out clothes, and thinking "let me catch you unaware, I will burn your shit down." She's a better person than I am.

There's like 4 places you can go with a break-up song:

"Irreplaceable"- in which you're pushing someone out of your life and cataloging how they got you twisted. I feel like "Take a Bow" kind of fits with it, and "Be Careful" takes it to the Kill-Bill-vengeance level of rage. I've done Irreplaceable, but have since sunk into the thinly veiled threats of someone who has been getting gas-lit for years.

"IDGAF/Sorry Not Sorry"- is the level that I want to get to. AKA the "I like textes from my exes" level where you've moved on, looking good and generally in a much better flaunting-it place. If I could combine looking like revenge with a little bit of actual revenge, I think that would be ideal...but at the moment we're making neither happen, so one of the two could be settled for.

"Want U Back/Want You Back"- is the "I made a mistake" style of break-up song I have never been able to relate to...even though I did go through a 17 year "please don't let me die alone" phase. Mostly unrelatable because I have never walked away from someone and then wanted them back. I'd write a much more pathetic version about how I've accepted my captor sympathy syndrome and am begging not to be thrown out of the compound. I am excited to have gotten to the sour girl counterpoint to the I Want You Back: The You're Not New Or Clever I made you more of who you are, you've only changed my ability to trust, and who ever needed to trust anybody anyway? I'm surprised at how much I don't miss the music we listened to, and Cowboy Bebob sucks.

"Thank U, Next"- I feel is kind of a completely new category. Maybe a couple of Adele songs hit this subject, but I don't know if Adele seemed as confident about it. It's like a "Sorry Not Sorry" but gracious.

When I first heard it, I absolutely wasn't having it. I think the sticking point is that I don't know if I will ever hit a point in my life where I'm like, grateful for my exes. If there had been another way for me to figure out I am better off on my own and focusing on my career I would have taken that. It wasn't until weeks later when Tehya sent me the teaser for the video and I recognized Jennifer Coolidge and a Mean Girls theme, that the song began to grow on me. Now with the release of the video I can't get enough of it! I feel like a lot of write-ups about the video are quick to mention that she places herself as the star, the "ingenue," of a handful of 00s rom-coms. BUT SHE DOESN'T.

She casts herself as Regina George, Torrence from Bring It On, Jennifer Gardner's character from 13 Going on 30, and Reese Witherspoon in Legally Blonde. The fact that she's been described as an ingenue just flies in the face of the Legally Blonde reference. Ariana Grande is, or I hope she or someone on her team is, positioning herself in roles where the character is a. seriously mean and manipulative, b. kind of oblivious to her own privilege, c. an asshole, and d. someone who really wanted to be loved and eventually finds strength in herself and that she deserves to be taken seriously. None of the characters she plays are naive waifs! Well, maybe Torrence...

Anyway, her willingness to embrace her inner Regina and Jennifer Gardner was a new level of charm. I can understand the sentiment a little better now. Although, I do not ever want to walk down the aisle, I think I was overlooking another key line in her thanking her father for being a teachable moment for her mother. When I first heard the song I had a visceral reaction to the idea of thanking people who I have come to really despise. Now I can get the low-key dig behind it. It's my new aim. The person who moves on most successfully is the one that wins the break-up.

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At the time I started writing this there had been some moments of drunk Tinder scrolling, but I quickly found that wasn't a good look for me and never produced the kind of energy I wanted from men. I don't know if any dating apps in general do so, but I have never tried OkCupid. I have heard that is where the nicer people might be? Collin was on it. He's nice, I guess. The jury is still out. That's not where I met him anyway, so I'm probably not getting whatever online persona he created to lure people into dates. 

Anyway, I was tired of having a guy say "to be honest, I'm not looking for anything serious, just friends with benefits" after I have already told them that I don't want relationship. My schedule matters to me more than your schedule, dude, and I just explicitly said I am busy. Too busy to waste time on your ego, or lack of reading comprehension, whatever made you think that "I'm working and in school so I'm not looking for anything serious" means I really really want to trap you into a relationship. I barely want to meet you. I'm just horny!
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The rest of this was about school and group projects, apparently. These are meaningless now. I'll have to use my degree sometime, but, you know, COVID. I don't know if I'll ever stop writing that in ALLCAPS. It feels like every time I think of COVID I'm screaming internally, so it makes sense to feel like I'm screaming it every time I reference it in writing.

At the time I started this I was still going to campus because everything was fine in that way nothing was ever fine but I had no idea how much worse it could get. I suppose I'm actually in a better place than I was from 2009 - 2016. It's hard to feel that way and appreciate it. Objectively though I know this is true. Perhaps not from a physical health perspective, but I am trying to fix that. I play Just Dance 3x a week now! And sometimes I don't feel like I'm going to pass out and die! My knees hurt though. My knees hurt then, too. I walked a lot, definitely more than I have in the last two years, and I don't think I know how to walk so something always felt like it fell out of place. But my body was not my primary focus. My complaints were mainly about having to carry the dudes in my group projects. I'm glad that's over now and I don't have to carry anyone (but The Kitten, she is a dead weight).

My body is overwhelmingly my focus now. I go to the doctor way more than is reasonable. It reminds me of when I was young. My mother took me to the doctor all the time for the dumbest things. She wanted to know if my neck fat was a problem. My grades were slipping so I needed to see a neurologist. I don't know if we've talked about this. We probably have. It's one of the few discernible pieces of the melting watercolors of my memory. Everything is bleeding into a murky pool, but sometimes you can see shapes where the bad parts were. The things that seemed off are the last things to fade. Grudges have been a surprisingly resilient medium for me. So I feel I have taken over where my mother left off when I was no longer under her care. I've been to a dermatologist, allergist, ENT, and PCP. I keep getting blood drawn but I'm chronically dehydrated so I keep having to go back after they try the first time. After a day of trying to drink more water than coffee. Obviously, it is usually the other way around. I've started drinking more tea though and I'm very proud of myself for this. 

There's a rough patch on the back of my hand. I've become obsessed with it and have bought several lotions. I'm starting to think that I am imagining the severity of it, but I had Collin feel it and he confirmed it existed. This morphed in my head into him recoiling in disgust, which is why the jury is still out on whether is a good boy. He is, but still, he can't know. Keeping secrets and being emotionally withholding is what gives me the upper-hand. The corners of my mouth have started to hurt, too. I think these are probably both symptoms of my obsessively washing my hands and face. The real problems are that I apparently have a throw-away hernia that I should probably get an endoscopy for, and they want me to get a CT scan of my kidneys. The even realer problem is that I read earlier that younger people are getting colon cancer that is only being detected in the late stage when it is much harder/impossible to treat. I'm pretty sure now that the answer to all my problems is that I have secret colon cancer.

I realized why I took a hiatus from writing. Over the last year or so I started to move all my random thoughts and anxieties into the group chat. I am realizing that is not the right venue for that. The right venue is probably therapy, but no one has the time or money or desire to be truthful enough for that. So here we are. Back with my silent internet therapist. I hope you've missed me.