Thongtastic, darling
You may find this to be shocking news to hear from a woman in America in the early years of the new millennium, but I have never worn a thong. I could blame it on my weight or germ phobia or feminism or a dire fear of wedgies, but the truth is; I just never understood them. And it’s ok, really. I met a woman at the hospital who would become one of those lifelong friends whereupon meeting you know on a gut level that you’ve known each other through lifetimes and there is that instant and total soul recognition before they ever even open their mouth. I’ll call her Jacqueline. She was and is a paragon of twenty-first century glamour but with that wholesome girl-next-door twist. Jacqueline is six feet tall, looks like Carol Alt and has the unmitigated charm that gives her a star quality—mainly because of its endearing insecure undertones and sweetness to all she encounters. But she doesn’t miss a trick--and she would become my confidante and co-conspirator in the battle against the brain in the months to come.
At thirty-eight (yet looking at least ten years younger), Jackie’s life had been parallel to mine in many ways…middle-class background, kind and loving (if sometimes clueless) old-fashioned parents, Catholic upbringing and overachiever tendencies. A few differences were that her father drank while my parents were virtual teetotalers--except for the occasional glass of wine (maybe two on holidays) with dinner twice a week at most. My father’s drug of choice was his career as a highly successful educator. But our mothers may have well as been the same person…both beautiful and both married to successful men who were emotionally distant at times. In fact—my mother had even reigned in the mid-sixties as Miss Massachusetts which was an endless source of fascination for my sister and me growing up but a source of pleased embarrassment for our humble yet stunning mom. The story goes that my mother had accompanied her friend to a casting call for the pageant and was scouted from the audience to try out…the rest, as they say, was history and her biggest thrill was not getting her picture taken by the local paper in crown and sash but her first ever plane trip down to Miami for the pageant itself. Her affair with fashion continued off and on for the next ten years while she did some runway and print work and even a gig as a hand model for a famous jewelry line. My sister and I were walking with books on our heads before we could read and wearing makeup before junior high.
Jackie’s mother came from the same era more or less…the “always look your best, even if you feel like crap” theory prevailing over all. She had once been on American Bandstand and closely resembled Annette Funicello while my mom was more the Natalie Wood type. About the third day after I had met my new pal in “lockdown”, her parents came to visit and drop off some clothes. Jackie’s attempt had been much more “serious” than most and had gone further than several others on the ward. She’d overdosed and lay comatose for over seventy-two hours while her family was on tenterhooks wondering if she did revive, would she be irreversibly brain damaged? Miraculously, she came out of it ok and was brought to the hospital where I’d already settled in a week earlier. The red-rimmed eyes I’d suffered as a side effect of the carbon monoxide had faded to a less alarming pink, so that my eyelids no longer resembled those of an albino rabbits. But Jackie’s skin still held a bluish tint that even careful makeup couldn’t camouflage. We made quite a ghoulish pair. After her parents left that first time, she was pawing through the stuff they’d brought her casually and came across a lacy thong spinning it around one finger asking me if her mother thought she’d be getting lucky? And in a smaller Ziploc bag were no fewer than four tubes of lipstick…all the better to look more schizophrenic with. We both “cracked up” laughing. Lipstick and thongs??!! Later she’d ask her mother what on God’s green earth she’d been thinking and her mother snapped irritably saying that she’d just grabbed things randomly and wasn’t exactly thinking lucidly after her daughter’s horrific dance with death thanks very much. Needless to say, she was not nearly as entertained as we were.
But I could definitely relate because my mother had packed me enough makeup to put on a Broadway show. (To be fair—I had asked for some foundation so I wouldn’t feel like such a hag under the less than flattering fluorescent lighting.) What kinds of subtle (or not so subtle messages) were our progenitors sending us at this, the lowest moments of our lives? It was the old “put on a happy face” and “fake it til you make it” school of thought and Jackie and I were both appalled and amused by the all-too-familiar sentiments. It was incredibly telling how such an unconscious gesture could pack such an emotional wallop. We were “pretty”, dammit, and that was not something to ever forget or take for granted—even, apparently, in life- or-death circumstances. Knowing that our mothers meant well was beside the point. Feeling lost, misunderstood and self-pitying were still at the top of our to-do lists and being generous to those who had half driven us to suicide (as we romanticized, all the while knowing that they were not ultimately responsible—we were) was not a priority. Since suicide is the most hostile act one can commit against oneself—other than drunk-dialing exes at three in the morning crying of course, it stands to reason that all that self-hatred which had been turned inward for so long culminating in a death wish calling one to action must eventually switch gears and have another outlet---the blame game. There are some theories that proclaim that suicide is the highest form of “screw you-it is”. There is definitely truth in that. However…the corpse is the one screwed the most in the end isn’t it? A corpse can’t dance, smell roses, kiss, or make love, let alone make amends can it? At least, none of the few I’ve seen anyway. So while the survivors of family members or friends are devastated, sometimes beyond repair…there is grief counseling and time to scab over wounds until one can successfully begins to function again. Time does nothing good for a corpse, and grief counseling is a bit late at that point.
Jacqueline and I would spend hours debating these fine points and other absurdities with each other and some of the other endearingly nutty “binmate” misfits we became close with over the next several weeks.
We often talked about our biological clocks and how we felt resentful of our own ovaries time restrictions.
“If I have to sit through one more baby or wedding shower I will shoot someone.”
Jackie and I shared this opinion that I expressed one day on a rant. I could tell from her emphatic eyebrow raise and sister-friend, sad-around-the-eyes smile that she got it. We both knew of course that I’d never really go Columbine but that on some primal level our friends were slowly and systematically murdering us with paper. We also knew that the sea of pink and blue ribbons or white and silver wrapping papers (that were now all too familiar harbingers of the babynuptialhousebuying beast) would soon swallow yet another friend.
“Now, when these invitations come in the mail my heart literally stops for a split second. These people are killing me by degrees with their fancy paper and swirly fonts.”
Jackie would just laugh and nod her “preaching to the choir” agreement.
Jackie understood all too well. Her attempt had followed a friend’s announcement that she was preggers and it had been one of her final straw moments. We felt as though our lives had slipped by us. We felt jaded and old. We felt our insides quite literally drying up. Society had told us we were old maids and therefore doomed to a spinsterdom filled with cardigans and cats. And I’m sorry—but as broken as we were…. neither of us was willing or ready to go that route…death seemed a welcome alternative when faced with unending loneliness, pitying glances from friends or worst of all, tiny, pretty napalm envelopes just sitting in our mailboxes waiting to explode our hearts and shatter our minds into irretrievable fragments…scattering pieces of our souls to the winds…carrying our disappointment and sorrow back to us again and again with written reminders and vellum inserts. It had all been so simple as children…we knew when we grew up that life would make sense…. We’d be safe from the wicked witches…. and all the promises of the early fairy tales of our youth would come to pass. We’d find our prince and our happily ever after. We’d ride off into stunning sunsets and decorate our castles with dream dust and butterfly wings.
We couldn’t have been more wrong.
Excerpted from the memoir, “Lipstick and Thongs in the Loony Bin” by Courtney A. Walsh.