It's 1995. I'm watching some of the videotapes my aunt brings home from working at Blockbuster. Some of them are collections of music videos that are wholly unrelated to one another. Weird Al Yankovic and MC Lyte come to mind.
I should note that at this point in my life, I have not yet been introduced to rock music. Hip-hop and R&B are all that's on my radar. (97.9 the Box. You know what's up, Houston.) I had five on it, though I doubt I knew was 'it' was at the time, but I did not (yet) smell like teen spirit.
So when I saw the video for Only Happy When It Rains, my whole life changed. I didn't know you could do that. I didn't know you could be that. Shirley Manson is wearing this tiny, girly dress with combat boots and fishnets. The boys have on nail polish and eyeliner. That music video changed me forever.
(And let's be real: it changed my concept of fashion forever, too. I haven't been without a pair of fishnets or bad bitch boots for many years now, and you couldn't pry my beloved eye makeup from the withered claws of my millennia-dead husk.)
What I learned was that I could be whoever I wanted. My parents, of course, generally had other ideas, but in the secret spaces of my mind and my journals, I could be anyone and do anything. I carried this with me through middle school, a miserable affair at a private Islamic school where my mom was the only non-Muslim around and that made me the odd one out. I nourished and grew it further in high school, where my group of lovable outcasts weren't really cast out, because our school was too small and our cliques all generally got along, but I was still weirder than all the weird kids, mixed-race and from a strict family that never gave me the freedom that a good kid like me deserved but never managed to earn.
Whoever I've been, she's always been as true and honest as she could be. I have very few, if any, regrets - I've made my mistakes, but I've learned from them as well as from those I didn't have to make but observed plenty of around me. I suck at some things, and I fail at some things, and circumstance has not always been kind to me, but I do not hesitate to say that I am exactly who I want to be.
The last time Garbage came to Texas, I was in high school, and though a dear friend bought me tickets, I was not permitted to go. I was, of course, crushed beyond explaining, and I don't really care to enumerate on that.
This time, another dear friend bought me a ticket because the tour coincided with my resigning from work. My health was at an all time low, but I knew that even though going to a show would be (and honestly, still is) a shortcut to a lot of pain for me, I could not pass up an opportunity that hadn't arisen for me in almost exactly ten years. However much I'd pay for it later, I would be there.
The show ended up being postponed because a band member had a family emergency. Admittedly, I was a bit relieved. Not about the emergency - I'd rather never have this opportunity than wish any negativity on anyone for my gain. But I was relieved to have a little time to wrestle my fucked-up body into submission.
The show is rescheduled for October 10, and I will be there. And even if I am in pain, nothing will hurt.
I got these tattoos as a reminder that I don't have to apologize for being a badass. That I don't have to answer to anybody but myself, so I'd better stay right. And most importantly, that that ten year old girl who dreamed of being beautiful and strong and free didn't get what she wished for. She got what she worked for.
So I'm gonna keep working, and if you see these legs at the show, come holler at me. Just don't judge me if I am the literal embodiment of every shaking-and-crying gif you've ever seen.
I'm still this thing you'll never doubt.
D
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