You Oughta Know
Photo credit: Eric Nopanen with Unsplash.
Call it dramatic but the stomping of feet up the stairs and exaggerated slam of my bedroom door was the only way I could properly show my outrage that day. I couldn’t tell you today why I was mad in 1997 because it’s not the fights you remember from adolescence but the emotions. The anger and resentment fueling the behavior were likely directed to my parents because fifteen year olds, like two year olds, save the big feelings for the ones who love you the best, no matter how irrational.
Time for my anger doula. I sorted through my small stack of CDs, grabbed the one I was looking for with the teal and pink cover and slid the disc in the open cd player. While I listened to the clicking and grinding of a spinning disc searching for track one, I flopped myself onto my waterbed.
As soon as the harmonica and electric guitar sounds echoed their melody, I was ready to feel. I tapped my fingers and toes, allowing the slosh of the waterbed displaced by my flop rock me along to the beat. When Alanis broke in with her breathy voice, I joined in too.
Do I stress you out?
My sweaters on backwards and inside out
and you say how-ee-ow-ee-ow appropriate.
I don’t think Alanis Morissette wrote “All I Really Want” about a teenager angry at her parents. It probably had something to do with a boy. Most songs were, right? But I didn’t have a boy in my life. I couldn’t relate. So I let the words speak for whatever I needed them to speak to and today that meant the injustice put upon me by my parents (again, couldn’t tell you what it was, likely it was justified, but for the sake of the story let’s pretend they are the bad guys.) (But for the record, they weren’t. They were the best. Love you, Mom and Dad.)
And all I really want is some patience
A way to calm the angry voice
And all I really want is deliverance
I pulled out the insert from the CD case so I could sing along to the lyrics. The shiny paper was crumpled and falling apart at the folds from how often I thumbed through the words. I didn’t know what half of them meant (Slap me with a splintered ruler?) I didn’t yet know what it meant to be a writer, to expel your deepest inner feelings through prose. What I did understand was that when Alanis sang, she screamed, even as she whispered. Her music touched on an emotion I didn’t know how to express. She was angry. Anger wasn’t a safe feeling for me. But in this bedroom with the sky blue walls and fluffy white clouds on the ceiling I painted myself, Alanis gave me permission to feel safe with anger.
I want you to know that I'm happy for you
I wish nothing but the best for you both
By the start of the next song, “You Oughta Know,” I was warmed up, emotions dispersed with each exhale. I loved this song the most. I loved the gentle push of the chorus contrasted with the angry rant of the refrain. I loved how Alanis’ true feelings opened up as the song progressed. This one I knew was about a boy, a boy who had done her wrong. Even though I had never had a boyfriend, every crush that never amounted to anything was another target toward which I aimed my angry darts.
As the words started building I felt a faint blush cross my face. This song was racy. Even alone in my bedroom I was embarrassed. And also emboldened.
“Remember when your mom wouldn’t let you listen to this album?” a friend of mine asked me years later. I didn’t remember this and apparently neither did my mom.
“Gosh I don’t even know who that is,” she said to me when I asked her about the album.
As I thought about it, maybe it was just what I told my friends because I assumed she wouldn’t like the bad words and sex talk. Which is ridiculous because my mom came of age in the late 60s and early 70s. She offered me birth control before I even had my first kiss. She was part of a sewing club called “Stitch and Bitch.” She certainly was no buttoned up prude.
But for whatever reason, I still thought I should be. Maybe it was the guilt I felt for the Christian albums abandoned once Alanis entered my life—reminders of the “good girl” I was supposed to be. Being the “good girl” was boring. I just didn’t have the courage to be who I really wanted to be. I wanted to be loud, bold, and brave. I wanted to be like Alanis.
In the safety of my bedroom of course.
The chorus picked up energy and I jumped up from my bed to join in. With my imaginary microphone in hand the beige carpet became my stage as I mouthed the words as loudly I could.
And I'm here to remind you
Of the mess you left when you went away
It's not fair to deny me
Of the cross I bear that you gave to me
You, you, you oughta know
Every year our high school held a lip sync competition. It was one of my favorite performances to attend. I was so impressed with the energy participants brought to the stage. The song came alive in their confidence. They owned every word as if it was coming from their own mouth.
One day, I decided if I ever tried out for the competition, I would lip sync to “You Oughta Know.” I came up with an entire routine. Perhaps influenced from the movie Sister Act, I decided the character singing would have to be a nun. I would start the song mouthing the lyrics quietly and timidly. In other words, familiarly. But as the song gained momentum, I would begin to pull off layers of my traditional nun costume, the head veil, the cross dangling from my neck, which would time perfectly with “the cross I bear that you gave to me” right before I flung it across the stage (sorry Jesus.) In the final chorus, I would tear off the robe revealing a slinky black dress and high heeled shoes. I didn’t own a black dress or high heels. But I wanted to be the girl that did. I wanted to dance around a stage in front of a crowd of people releasing all of my feelings without concern of judgement. I loved who I became in this performance. Bold and brave and a little bit risqué. We are our best selves in the dreams we create.
But that’s all it would be, a dream. I would not get on that stage. I didn’t have the fuming confidence of Alanis, not outside these bedroom walls, anyway. So the dream, and my confidence, stayed locked away where it was safe—inside of me.
****
“Ok, fine, I’ll get up there but only if there is an Alanis song on the list.”
It was the first night my husband Mike and I had been away from all three of our children since, well, we had become the parents of three children almost 18 months ago. I wish I could tell you we were on a luxury vacation but we were not. Instead, we were in a hotel ballroom five miles from our house at a fundraising gala for his work. Woo hoo. We know how to live it up. At least we could sleep in the next morning.
We had made it through the pomp and circumstance of the event and moved into the night time portion—live band karaoke.
If you’ve never experienced live band karaoke, let me tell you it is far superior than singing along to a cued up instrumental track. Up on stage with live musicians you feel like a real rock star. This is where Mike shines. He is the leading role of a musical to my background chorus girl. And on nights like tonight, he can stand on stage singing Living on a Prayer and you might mistaken him for Bon Jovi himself the way he owns that microphone, while I’m the one standing on the floor cheering him along. If he went to my high school, he would have won every lip sync contest just by charisma alone.
But now, he was trying to convince me to take my turn on stage. Lucky for him, I was feeling the lowering inhibitions of a mother of three who doesn’t have to respond to her children until check out time tomorrow. In other words, I was on my third glass of wine. But lucky for me, I knew there was no chance the band’s set list included an Alanis Morissette song.
I was wrong. They did. They had one song. It was “You Oughta Know.”
Well, damn. Bluff called.
Before I could change my mind and pretend I didn’t see the list, the MC caught my eye and pointed to me. “Looks like you’re up next! What’s it gonna be?”
Maybe it was the black slinky dress I slipped into that night, or the heels that lengthened my stride, or maybe it was the rush of relief to have my body to myself for once, but I didn’t hesitate. I told him my song choice and walked up to the front of the stage with an unrecognizable confidence in my swagger.
So we’re doing this.
The band jumped right into the song. Unfortunately I wasn’t yet in my sky blue bedroom with the painted fluffy clouds. I didn’t have Alanis singing along with me, I wasn’t in my safe space.
The band leader would have to play the role of Alanis tonight. As soon as he started singing, I was ready to jump in.
I wish nothing but the best for you both.
As I sang, the lyrics flashed across a screen in front of me but I barely looked at them. With every line read I could feel myself shedding another layer keeping me contained inside. In fact, I don’t think it was the dress or the heels that gave me the confidence that night. I think it was being a mom.
Unlike my childhood, when I became a parent, I couldn’t hide in my room with my feelings. I had to keep going—cook the meals, hold the babies, clean up the messes, then do it over again the next day. Parenting found a hole in my fragile exterior and broke me open. The therapy of writing did too. Alanis taught me how to feel safe with my emotions. Parenting taught me how to feel safe releasing them. The shattering of motherhood pushed me out of my sheltered bedroom and into the spotlight.
And that’s where I stood tonight, on stage, in front of a crowd, releasing all of my feelings without concern of judgement, bold and brave and a little bit risqué (and hoping Mike’s boss doesn’t judge me for those racy lyrics.) I found my confidence. And I love who I became in this performance.
Image created by @phoenixfeatherscalligraphy for C+C, 2021
This post was written as part of a blog hop with Exhale—an online community of women pursuing creativity alongside motherhood, led by the writing team behind Coffee + Crumbs. Click here to read the next post in this series "Playlist.”
PS. For more fun things about me, sign up for the Raise & Shine Letter. It comes out mid month-ish as a little note to help your days shine. I promise if I have a repeat performance on stage, you’ll be the first to know.