John Green, Kesha, and On How Life is Unfair in the Most Cruel Way Possible
musings and realizations from a few days of struggling
((TW: sexual assault mentions))
When I have nothing better to do with my time, I like to read. Words are my lifeblood, and I love reading and rereading stories, picking up all the details I missed and reliving the ones I remember. Once in a blue moon, I’ll find myself reading one of THE MOST irritating books of all time: The Fault in Our Stars by John Green.
Now don’t get me wrong, I love John Green and what he does and how he writes, but this story infuriates me to no end. I find Hazel and Augustus so arrogant, such know-it-all kids who have WAY too many freedoms for being the age they are (Hazel leaving the house at two in the morning?? And her parents DON’T wake up?? What the hell??). There are pieces of the book where I literally have to speed-read through because it makes me cringe.
That isn’t the reason why it infuriates me, though. While there are aspects of this book that I scoff at, that I turn my nose at, I always- without fail- end up crying over it. When Augustus tells Hazel his cancer his back, when Hazel is talking to him at his casket, when she’s reading the last letter he sent to Van Houten- their love and their pain cut me so deeply that I can’t help but cry, and I often wind up closing the book and telling myself how it wasn’t fair , their ending wasn’t fair, the way this book that infuriated me so much made me feel, just that life isn’t fair.
That phrase has been hitting far too close to home as of late. Just last night, scrolling my way through instagram, a friend of mine announced that she was diagnosed with a rare form of skin cancer, and while that in itself made me upset, here’s the catch: it was more likely than not by her hormones. My friend is a trans woman, and has been transitioning for about a year now. She has come so far, and still has a ways to go, but she is confident in who she will become. The hormones have helped her grow into her body, the body she has been trying to grow into all her life. These hormones she’s being given, that have helped her in becoming herself, are now the probable cause of this cancer, this disease that she will have to fight. And to top it off, she will have to stop taking the hormones and put a halt to her transitioning because of the cancer.
There was nothing I could do to stop this pain that she’s inevitably feeling, I just messaged her that I love her and I’m here for her. I cried and cried, unable to imagine how she could be staying sane throughout this.
There are so many stupid things that happen in life that I can’t understand why they happen, especially to the people they happen to. One of the worst kinds of shitty-happenings are when it affects the person so directly, when it wedges itself right in the way of their lives.
My boyfriend is an incredibly talented and involved musician. He plays the French horn, bass guitar, and taught himself how to play the valve trombone. He loves jazz, classical, and if it sounds like it would be on your local hipster radio station, he’s probably jamming to it. He loves to sing, to create harmonies and write music. He’s a part of several ensembles at his school, and always was in high school.
Senior year of high school, he developed carpal tunnel in both wrists, making doing certain everyday tasks a little more difficult. He can’t text or use his phone as often as he used to. Playing Smash with his friends causes him pain, and I find myself scolding him when I know his wrists ache beyond belief and others ask him over to play it, or other video games. Typing at his computer for too long is a bust, especially for an English major like him. And of course, playing his instruments- something he puts his heart and soul into, his music- and to bend his wrists and fingers into positions to play the notes is a horrific offender. Not only were these things inhibited by his condition- they were the things that caused it.
The very thing he needs to make his music is the thing that prevents him from practicing the most. And there are more times than not where he will battle through the pain to perform in concerts and practice overtime, and the pain just gets overwhelming and he just powers through. To see his grimace of pain when he’s texting his mom, or signing a receipt, or even just holding my hand just makes me want to fix the pain I know I can’t.
My grandfather was once a socialite of mid-New Jersey, always out and about, meeting up with old friends constantly, making new ones everywhere he went, and could never stay still for too long. When my family would get together for reunions and family vacations, it was always he and I that would stay home with each other, often going off on our own adventures. We would go to the shore and watch boats go by, we would go out for lunch together at diners and McDonald’s, and we would be blasting his Phantom of the Opera CDs and the oldies music from the AM radio stations. Even a simple trip to the grocery store was a wonderful experience with him. And after every little outing I had with him, it would always end with ice cream. I loved the time I spent with him. I still do.
But it’s very different now. In these past few years, the dementia has struck and done nothing but invade. The COPD combined with the dementia has reversed the life of my grandfather. Once such an independent, stir-crazy man now spends most of his days on a couch watching movies. He can’t drive anymore, probably the most crushing blow of all of this. He can’t go out like he used to. His words fail him too often to glaze over, and we are having to finish his sentences for him. He is connected to oxygen most of the time, the tubes in his nostrils and someone having to help him make every step. He forgets what we would consider small, simple things, gets anxious very easily, and is clearly unhappy. I recently spent a week of vacation with him and my family, and the look in his eyes when we were all going off to do something he couldn’t was enough to break me. It was the eyes of a lost puppy, the ones my dog gets when he knows we’re going on a big trip and he’s afraid we’re going to leave him behind. The eyes that make me want to hold him and stay with him so he knows he’s loved.
I like to tell him stories of our past adventures in hopes that he remembers, and when he does, there’s so much joy that fills me, and this hope that he’ll begin to remember everything again, this tiny sliver of hope that I can have him back. But I know I’m losing him, and that I will only continue to lose him as time goes on.
My best friend from college (and future roommate) and I first bonded over our identities as members of the LGBTQ+ community. We talked about being nonbinary and how masculinity and femininity make up so much of what we know, and how we try to conquer that and just be ourselves. We openly talked about our sex lives, and they helped me understand a lot about sex culture, a lot more than I already knew (which was quite a bit). They were always talking to our friend group about what kind of encounters they had with their online hookups and the BDSM training palace they went to in their spare time to relieve stress and have a good time and let loose from the confining norms of society. It was no secret what they were into and what they liked to do.
One night- a night I still regret not being there- in the last few weeks of freshman year, I was out with my fraternity friends having a get-together, while most of my friends on the floor of my building were drinking and hanging out together. One of the only sober person was my friend. Another friend of ours was getting sick in her room from drinking, so they went to go check on her and be sure she was staying hydrated and not dying. While going to help her, two guys on our floor took advantage of my friends openness and free sexuality and sexually assaulted them. No one was there to stop it, and once they managed to break free, they ran to their room screaming, where the two guys would camp outside of, trying to coax them into talking with them. I cut them off, as did most of our friend group, but there’s only so much we could do, since they lived on our floor. My friend tried to press charges, but they were dropped after the boys were interviewed and it was concluded that “the case probably wouldn’t work out.”
The openness they had and shared with us was what these boys thought would be a good enough excuse to take advantage of. These boys thought it was an invitation to their body, and thought nothing of what the aftermath would be like. Luckily, my friend finds peace and healing in sex, and continues to go to the training palace to reclaim their body and their choice to their body. I know they still struggle, from offhanded tweets and emotional texts I get, and they can’t always access the healing they need.
So many people have their own stories of these happenings, where the thing they loved tried to drag them down. There are the ones of those who put all of their love into one person, only for them to take it for granted, to turn around and unleash their wrath as abuse, and how they couldn’t escape the wrath. There are the ones of those who push themselves in their athletics and have such futures ahead of themselves, only for an injury in their sport to backtrack them, or derail them completely from their path, forever benched. There are the ones of kids who find something they’re interested in- be it a book series, a movie, a video game, a hobby- only for other kids to make fun of them for enjoying it, making them ashamed for their little pleasures and forced to retreat into themselves. There are even the petty ones, where maybe you have this one friend who introduced you to all these amazing people and now you all share a bond together, but that one friend just doesn’t seem to fit in anymore, seems to have fallen out of touch with everyone else, or no one wants to be around them anymore because they’ve change.
I hate that I know so many people who share such experiences. I hate that I have more stories of friends whose stories mirror a similar pattern: the pleasures, the indulgences, even the necessities of their survival becoming less of faery lights in their bedroom and more like a house fire caused by said faery lights, only they are the house.
There is such cruelty in your suffering being based in your joy. There is a brand of heartbreak that is just laced with the hopelessness of knowing what you love is so deeply rooted in your pain. Yet this happens and happens and affects us and we can only see how unfair it is; how something we gave such power to us could be the very piece that makes it fall down. It’s something we never expect to happen. It shouldn’t happen.
Last night, late into the night after discovering my friend had cancer, I was listening to Kesha’s new song, “Praying” on repeat, when my own shitty happenings resurfaced in my mind, and I spent most of the night thrashing in bed, trying not to claw at my chest and my throat and my arms as I sobbed. Not only was this song causing me relive past traumas, but I felt like I was sharing this moment with Kesha, sharing my pain with her. Her music is a vessel for her. She creates it to make people happy and share her creations. In trying to create her music, her producer repeatedly emotionally and sexually abused her, and she has been fighting for years to break from his contract and his influences. When she was finally freed of the contract, she wrote and released music, including “Praying”, a song about how she has become strong in spite of the pain her caused her and how she forgives him. How she managed to stay strong against him is unfathomable.
The one thing she wanted to do was almost destroyed by the man who promised to give it to her. Even though it was making music that got her involved with this man, she pushed through and still pushes through every day. She used it in her healing, healing that couldn’t be more pure in its making. She reclaimed her joy through the pain it caused her.
Kesha is a prime example of how some of the worst things can happen to the best people. My friends and family I mentioned above are some of the best people in my life. They’re not perfect, but I aspire to mirror their ways, to gain some inkling of their strength and positivity and good vibes they send off in everything they do. How these terrible things happen to such wonderful people is beyond me, especially when these terrible things were a source of joy for them.
So is how Hazel found the one thing that made her want to go on- a beautiful, snarky, adoring boy- succumbed to the same disease that held her hostage. How the first happiness she felt in a long time was snatched as soon as she got too close.
“The risen sun too bright in her losing eyes”
Life has a funny way of rearing its ugly head sometimes. No, funny isn’t the right word. Maybe something more along the lines of vile: ruining everything its path and leaving no survivors, no mercy, no nothing, most vile of all when it turns what we love into weapons against us. There is no joy in such pain. There is no just way to face it. There is only what we have, and how we love, and how we choose to carry on.
