Miles to Go (13 page)

O! Say Can You See

T
hat spring, I was invited to perform the national anthem at the 2007 Easter Egg Roll—at the White House. The White House! I was definitely excited, but surprisingly, I wasn’t nervous. The fear and anxiety that I once felt in auditions and in early performances —it was gone. I grew out of it. I think everyone does at some point. You realize you have one life—and you have to live fully for the moments you have. There can’t be room for nerves.

My mother, my grandmother, my dancers, and I flew to Washington just for the event. It was cold for April, so I borrowed an outfit from one of my dancers, Jen (their outfits are just as blinged-out as mine). Laura Bush (that’s right, folks, the former First Lady) introduced me. And then I sang on the same balcony where the president does his speeches. (Wouldn’t it be cool if after every presidential address some singer appeared on the balcony and rocked out? You know— here’s the State of the Union, and then there’s me singing. Oh, just let me have my little fantasy!)

After I sang, I went downstairs where a bunch of kids, Clifford the Big Red Dog (or at least a person in the costume), and some other important political figures were milling about. I even did some back handsprings on the South Lawn.
(Now that’s something I’ll want to tell my grandkids.)

The Egg Roll was around the time I wrote “Girls’ Night Out,” meaning Prince Charming and I were on a break. We were young and living strange lives.

But it just so happens that he was also at the Egg Roll.
The instant I saw Prince Charming, my heart did a cartwheel.
(I was doing a lot of actual—and metaphoric—tumbling that day.) It didn’t matter how we fought, what was said, how hard it might be, or if we were taking “time.” There was no question in my heart. We were back together. Or we’d never broken up. The point was, everything was right in the world.

I know that I’ve had some pretty remarkable moments in my life so far. But I’ll
never
forget that day—singing at the White House, introducing Mammie to Laura Bush, and falling in love all over again.

About Face

S
o there I was. I had my dream job. I had great friends and family. My Guitar Hero scores were getting better.
(Well, I was still stuck on Hard, but at least I was enjoying myself.)
Everything was
good
.
(No, great!)
And then, suddenly, it wasn’t.

One morning I couldn’t get out of bed. It was near the end of the second season of
Hannah Montana
. There was a lot going on. The show had proven so successful that Hannah Montana had gone from being a character to being a brand. There was a tour coming up, the albums, press, endorsements, charity events, and lunch boxes. I wouldn’t have been surprised to step into my bathroom and find Hannah Montana toilet paper. (Though I’m not sure exactly what I would have done with it.) It sounds exciting, and it was, but in a weird way I was removed from it all. Disney executives were making all the big decisions about Hannah. I just got told where I had to be and when I had to be there. On the set, after work, weekends, I was going full steam. It definitely took a toll on me.

I would like to say it was exhaustion or the pressure of new fame, but that’s not why I couldn’t get out of bed on that particular morning. The truth was, I couldn’t get out of bed because my skin looked awful.
I didn’t believe I was beautiful. Nothing could change that fact.

My dad had had bad skin as a teenager, and mine had slowly gotten worse as the season went on. I’m sure all that stage makeup didn’t help. And as if the mirror wasn’t sending the message loud and clear, people on the Web started making comments.
(Makeup, check. Stress, check. Lack of sleep, check. Fourteen years old, check. Being made fun of on the Internet, check.)

How could I show up at work? I couldn’t let them film me looking like this. How could I go outside? I couldn’t let a fan take a photo of me. I usually go to the gym in the morning. But how could I deal with all those mirrors?

I couldn’t take it anymore. It wasn’t just the zits. I honestly believed there was nothing special about me. I refused to get up. I couldn’t move. Hours went by. Then it was two p.m., and I was supposed to be at the studio for work. My mom had been coming in to check on me, and by now she was threatening me, saying, “I’m going to call your dad. He’s going to have to fly home.” She wanted to get me out of my bedroom and back into the real world, out in the daylight. But it wasn’t that simple.

Eventually my mom got me to go to work that day, but the darkness didn’t go away. I’d see myself in makeup, or Photoshopped in magazines, and see this perfect, airbrushed version of myself. Then I’d look in the mirror and see reality. You know how all those magazines are doctored, how none of the models or celebrities or stars look as good in real life as they do when they’ve been dressed, styled, made up, and airbrushed? Well, if you ever find yourself wishing you looked as good as Miley Cyrus in some photo (and I’m not so vain as to assume you would), just remember:
Miley Cyrus
doesn’t look as good as Miley Cyrus in that photo. Take it from me. I became obsessed with the way I looked. I’d stare at the mirror for hours, hating myself outside and in. If all eyes were on me, why did I have to look like this?

It started with my skin, and then it snowballed. I didn’t like my looks, my body, my personality, anything about myself. Why would God do this to me? I know, I know, melodrama. A few zits don’t exactly make me Job. But cut me some slack. I really am a teenager. On better days, I know that superficial things shouldn’t matter. I know I’m supposed to put it in perspective. But that doesn’t mean I’m good at it yet.

We needed to at least try to fix my skin. So I went to a dermatologist. I had high hopes. I figured: this is Los Angeles. L.A. doctors had to have all sorts of magical ways to instantly make actors look perfect. I thought they’d, like, airbrush me in real life with special cover-up that would last until my twentieth birthday. Yeah, not so much.

If you’ve ever had acne, you know that there’s no instant solution. I walked out of that office more depressed than when I went in. My mom tried to reason with me. She said, “Every day when you wake up you have a choice to make. You can decide to be mad at the world, or you can decide that this isn’t going to affect you. You won’t have this problem forever. We’re working on it. But meanwhile you have to remember that there are a lot worse things in the world.” I know Mom learned that way of living from Mammie. Mammie always says, “All things work together for the good.” But this time I rolled my eyes. Of course there were worse things. Now I was ugly
and
self-obsessed. But Mom went on, “I know that doesn’t make you feel better, but you do have a choice about how you’re going to deal with things every day. You can be angry and upset. Or you can tell yourself that you have acne just like everyone else.” I listened to the words she was saying, but they just floated around me. I couldn’t—
wouldn’t
—take them in.

The whole end of the season was a miserable, hard time for me. I wasn’t talking to anyone on the set, I was surly, I was late. I didn’t really talk about it to most people. For the most part, they had no idea how twisted up I was, though at some point the AD (assistant director) on the show, was like, “Where’s Miley? This isn’t our Miley.” He was right. It wasn’t me. I don’t usually hold on to thoughts that drag me down, but this time I couldn’t let go.

When the AD came up to me and asked what the deal was, I told him about my skin (although that wasn’t all of it), and he talked to me about his own struggles with acne. I looked around, and it occurred to me that everyone has a history of obstacles. I knew I wasn’t the only teenager with acne, but I also got it that people live through it.
You deal. You survive. You grow up and you build a career. And you remember these big/little hardships. They make you human.
Talking to the AD, to my mom—none of it was the magic cure, but I slowly managed to keep getting out of bed. That was the best I could do.

When the season ended, I was busier than ever. I was about to go on tour and didn’t have time to think. I was always dancing, sweating, out late working. The distraction helped. But when I went home, and the distractions were gone, the self-hatred would hit me all over again. I’d lost perspective.

The Luckiest Girl in the World

T
he loss of perspective wasn’t just because of my skin. I was getting a lot of attention, even for a middle child like me. It was affecting me. I was self-absorbed and unhappy. I knew that there were bigger problems than mine, but I couldn’t see beyond my own issues. I was being a brat. Stardom had changed me. I wasn’t Miley anymore. I was Hollywood. Something
had
to shift.

Remember how I said that when I was growing up my dad went straight from his performances to donate the flowers and gifts he received to the closest children’s hospital? Well, he did that all the time. I was raised visiting hospitals with my dad and with churches. When I started working on
Hannah Montana
, I made sure to keep doing the same. These kids didn’t have much to smile or laugh about. They were powerless to change their situations. They were angry, with nobody to blame. They had no relief from their sicknesses and their frustrations. But many of them were fans of the show, and I came to see that when they were watching it, for that thirty minutes, they were distracted from their pain, maybe even happy.

When that second record,
Meet Miley Cyrus
, came out, I was still in a funk, still depressed and full of self-hatred. Then I went to a children’s hospital to give everyone the new CD. Kids who hadn’t smiled for a long while, smiled. One little girl pulling an oxygen monitor came in to meet me. She was going through yet another round of chemotherapy. She had no hair remaining, and little time left to live. When I handed her my CD, she said, “I’m the luckiest girl in the world.” It was so hard to see. She was dying before my eyes.

Childhood cancer is impossible for me to understand. My pappy was a big, strong man, but cancer made him cry, and if my pappy cried, I know he was in more pain than any human should ever suffer.
To imagine a child enduring that . . . To get a disease when you should be playing ball and pretending to be a princess and jumping rope . . . A small child with no experience or wisdom to help them through it—I just can’t bear it.

If such a small gesture as a visit and a little music can make a child happy, then I sure want to do that kind of thing as often as humanly possible. When I visit, I don’t like to leave until I’ve gotten them all laughing. When I can’t visit in person, I make phone calls to kids in hospitals. When I can’t call, I send videos. I’m not vain. I’m not, like,
Oh, I’m Miley Cyrus and I’m so special that I change kids’ lives.
But if this career gives me any power, I want to use it right. So if I can make a day a little brighter, you better bet I’m going to do it.

Coming home from the hospital that day, I felt the darkness shift a little. I was so sad and moved and full of prayers for the children I had met. Seeing the children suffering—and surviving—was a jolt. How could I think about my skin problems—and all the other self-criticism—when I had so much to be grateful for?

A few weeks later, I met Vanessa, a person who would change my life forever. It was before a Disney event at a hospital in Los Angeles. Vanessa was nine years old and had cystic fibrosis. The night I met her she was wearing a Cinderella costume.
(No, Disney didn’t pay me to write this.)
But she looked just like Ariel from
The Little Mermaid
.
(Actually, Disney
did
pay me to write this, but they didn’t tell me what to say.)
She had green eyes, dark skin with freckles, and glowing red hair. I said, “You look so beautiful,” and she said, “You do too,” and gave me a huge hug. There was something in that hug that touched me. She was angel-like. Something passed between us. I just knew we were meant to be friends. It was like my first meeting with Prince Charming. We were friends at first sight. We talked for a while longer, and when I had to go I asked my mom to get her mom’s e-mail address so we could stay in touch.

That night after the Disney event, I had to go to the studio to work on a song. But when I got there, I couldn’t do it. I felt tears threatening to spill over. I pretended to be sick to get out of the studio because I didn’t want to cry in front of everyone. I just couldn’t sing. Music is everything to me—I love being in the studio. But all I wanted was to hang out with Vanessa and make sure she was okay.

I was anxious to go back and see her again, but my mom couldn’t find her mom’s e-mail. Mom loses everything.
(She denies this.)
She loses her cell phone at least once every day. So we went back to the hospital without knowing how to find Vanessa. I didn’t even know her last name. I didn’t know anything—just that there was something special about Vanessa. Reception at the hospital couldn’t help us; we had my dad on the phone at home looking through my mom’s stuff. Finally the head of the hospital showed up and knew exactly who she was. He told us she’d gotten to go home for a week. So the next week we came back and surprised her. I’m a weird mix of mature for my age and immature for my age, and Vanessa was the same way. We had a special connection, and quickly became true friends.

I invited Vanessa to come visit me on the set. She was on oxygen and kept coughing. Her mom would pound her on the back to help the coughing stop. I was told that she might live to thirteen, she might live to twenty. She had to be very careful not to get sick. I had to wear a mask around her. And when she wanted to borrow her mother’s lip gloss, her mother said she wasn’t allowed to because of the germ factor. She started crying. “Everyone else gets to wear makeup,” she said, and I knew that that was only the tip of the iceberg.

I had been praying to God to take away my vanity and self-centeredness. All I had to do was turn on the news or flash back to the suffering kids I’d met to realize how petty I was acting.
When I met Vanessa, all the superficial obsession over my skin, and all the darkness I’d been feeling, fell away.

That was one of Vanessa’s gifts to me—perspective. You can’t suddenly gain perspective just because your mom tells you (nicely—over and over again, but still nicely) to snap out of it. You need to see things,
really
see them, feel them, live them, so you know what’s big and what’s little, what matters and what to put aside.

I’m not saying I don’t still sometimes get caught up in that stuff. When I read online that people think I have “cankles” (which means calf-ankles), I kind of had a fit. My dad said, “That’s okay, honey. All the Cyrus women have cankles. It’s a family trait. You should be proud.” Thanks, Dad. I never thought I had the tiniest ankles in the world. But now I had Internet confirmation that my fabulous cankles were obvious to one and all. I was so upset when I read the cankles comment that my mom confiscated my computer.

I’m sixteen. I have my moments. How can you always have perspective if you haven’t lived for very long? I don’t think it’s possible. But you can try. I want to be a person who focuses on the positive. I’m living an incredible life, and I never forget to be grateful for that. I try to remind myself that with that life comes some challenges. People can be mean or spiteful or envious or resentful or judgmental. Or they honestly hate my ankles, and it’s important to them to express that in a public forum! Whatever. It’s part of the gig, and I wouldn’t trade the gig for anything. That’s what I tell myself (and Mom reminds me) when the meanness and pettiness get to me. Keeping things in perspective takes work, and, like everything I do, I try to give it 110 percent.