Reaching Out to the Stars (13 page)

I continued with my daily routine and made a pit stop at Dunkin Donuts for the usual medium iced coffee with cream and sugar and some munchkins for the kids. I then returned home. My mood was very somber and depressed.

A couple of hours later I called Bryce at work. As he picked up the phone, I said, “I think I’m grieving or something.”

He said, “I knew you would be.”

“I really did not think this would bother me but I almost cried like three times today.” He began to laugh as I was laughing too, but almost crying at the same time.

As my day went on, taking care of the kids, cleaning up and waiting for Bryce to come home, it was constantly weighing on my mind.

That night as I was cleaning up the kids toys in the family room, I started to cry. As Bryce came into the room, he asked, “What’s wrong?”

I replied, “Nothing.”

Bryce then said, “What is it, oh no, it’s not…Clay?” He started laughing and left the room as I again was laughing and crying at the same time.

I think that these laughing crying combinations were a direct vent of both feeling silly and ridiculous, but also feeling like a small piece of me had died.

It did not help that as I was cleaning up, the television in the background aired shows like Entertainment Tonight and Extra which kept showing clips over and over again of people’s reactions of the Clay news. I could not help but want to slap Simon Cowell’s face off his measly little neck. I always felt that Simon never liked Clay. I am not quite sure why but he has always talked about him with negative connotations.

I started to rethink the whole controversy that had happened on the Regis and Kelly Show. When Clay put his hand over Kelly Ripa’s mouth to shut her up and she said, “I don’t know where that hand has been,” I’m not sure it was a homophobic comment. I honestly think he embarrassed her and she wanted to embarrass him back. To me, it seemed like she was being a little overconfident and she made herself look petty by saying that. She has been known to do the same thing to Regis several times in the past and he never made a big thing of it. I think she let her ego get the best of her. It was not becoming of her and I always liked her until she pulled that stunt and then never apologized. At least be a big enough person to admit when you’re wrong and move on.

Upon further reflection, I started to think that it was a good thing that my obsession was not as passionate. Maybe my new obsession with Jason Castro had worked as a buffer to a reaction that may have been much worse.

I had called Aunt Carol to tell her the news and because I had heard that Clay was going to be on Good Morning America and wanted her to find out for me when the Diane Sawyer interview was going to be on. As she had not heard the news, she had asked, “Did you really think he was not gay?”

“Well, I always knew it was a possibility but it was never really confirmed.”

In truth, I never really thought he was gay until I heard about the in vitro. It was kind of a sure sign but as it was still not confirmed, I never wanted to believe it until it came from the horse’s mouth. Now that it had, I guess I had to deal with the feelings that came along with it, never knowing how I really would. It’s hard to anticipate a reaction to something until it actually happens and you are faced with it.

When Aunt Carol called me back, she said that the first part of the Diane Sawyer interview was already online on the Good Morning America website and that there would be a second part the next morning. She told me that when I told her the news, all she could think about was Uncle Tony. This is because Uncle Tony always used to tease me about my obsession with Clay. He always would refer to him as Rueben.

Uncle Tony passed away almost 4 years ago after a courageous fight with cancer. It was a very sudden diagnosis that shocked us all. He went very quickly and I can’t even come to grips with the fact that he has already been gone for almost 4 years.

Uncle Tony was like a second father to me. When I married Bryce, I never felt accepted. It was always very difficult for me to deal with this. Not to sound egotistical but I never had to deal with the feeling of not being liked in my adult years. Not that I can remember, anyway. I pride myself on being a nice person and going out of my way to be there and do for others. Therefore, it never made sense to me. I have been known to forgive but to never forget. I guess that means I am a big grudge holder. I feel like forgetting about the past means that you would never learn from it, never become a stronger person, which I feel I have from many negative experiences in my life. Although things happen in life that suck, I do believe that it makes you stronger.

Aunt Carol and Uncle Tony always made me feel like part of the family. Uncle Tony and I had a special bond and sometimes I felt as if only he could understand my difficulties with people to my silly obsessions such as my love for Clay Aiken. Although he always joked, he never made me feel bad about myself for my silly hang-ups which secretly were my passions. I miss him a lot and know that if he were still here, I would have received more than one phone call so he could pick on me a little, or maybe a lot.

I tuned into The Diane Sawyer interview, parts one and two. Shortly after that, my mom delivered me the October People. I felt bad for Clay because even though I will never know what he was going through, I do realize that coming to grips with his sexuality and then having to tell it to the rest of the world must have been difficult. Not everyone in this world is open to homosexuality and it is because they do not understand it.

Clay is right when he said that some of his fans will not be okay with it because they won’t. As a true fan, I can only speak for myself.

I believe that being gay is not a choice. I think that some males are born with a female psyche and some females are born with a male psyche. There is no way of controlling that.

I am not bothered by the fact that Clay is gay per the reasoning of most people. I accept him for who he is and it doesn’t change the fact that he is still a great guy with an amazing talent who will probably be a great dad. Rather, my sadness stems from the fact that there are now a lot of happy gay males out there and a lot of depressed straight females, not ever having a chance to get with Clay Aiken. The depression is all about his sexuality putting an end to the fantasy.

Funny but true, I will admit the reality of Clay coming out killed the fantasy for me for a short while. On the other hand, I was able to work through it with some deep thought and self-realization. I realize that I have as much of a chance of having a slumber party with Clay Aiken as I do with Jason Castro or any other celeb for who most women fantasize. It is only a fantasy, although part of that fantasy is the hope of it possibly happening. That’s what keeps us dreaming. Therefore, through it all, I guess I will just have to settle for a Will & Grace type of relationship with my boy Clay. I just hope that Jason is straight.

Chapter 13

Reality and the Expectations of the Fan

For six years, I have been searching for answers to questions and feeling like the only people who could possibly give me the answers I was looking for were unreachable, untouchable…stars.

I started thinking about why we as a society get so ridiculously caught up in the celebrity scene. I wondered why it is that we get so sucked in by television shows like American Idol.

With my counseling background, I started to analyze some of the different possibilities of why we think the way we do based on my own personal experience, the American Idol experience.

I do believe that many people reach a point where they look back on their lives and wonder where they would be if they took a different path. When we admire someone excessively and refer to them as our idol or hero, is it because there is a part of us who wishes we could be where they are? Is it because deep down we once had a dream that we didn’t follow through and we are envious? Three years ago, I feared that maybe I fit into this category.

When I first discovered the television show American Idol which started my huge obsession with Clay Aiken, it started to bring me back to a place where I once was in my life. As I revisited those times in my mind, I had some regrets about not pursuing a career as a vocalist. I suppose I never had the self-esteem or the push or shove from anybody substantial in my life to follow that dream. I just thought it to be unrealistic and thought I was just young and stupid, wishing for something I felt would never happen and never really thinking I was good enough to get anywhere with it. I guess I will always wonder if I really was ever good enough. I started to feel that maybe I had missed out on something and that it was too late for me to do anything about it because I was too old and I waited too long.

As I was going through this time in my life, I decided to start singing again. I began taking some voice lessons by none other than my junior high music teacher. I thought that even though I could sing well, I didn’t have an outstanding range or a lot of power. I thought that maybe there was a secret to it all that I just wasn’t getting, that maybe I wasn’t using my voice correctly and maybe I could learn something new and become better.

I also had my heart set on going to a recording studio and recording my own CD. I asked David if he would accompany me on acoustic guitar. David convinced me not to pay the money to go to a recording studio, that recording had been something that he had wanted to learn to do and that we could do it right in his condo. We started with the song “Underneath It All” by No Doubt, one of my favorite bands. David liked them, too.

As I was excited about my accomplishment, my brother seemed exhausted from the recording since for him it was a lot more work because he played and recorded every instrument beforehand. He had said that if we did any more covers that it would have to be music we both liked because it was a lot of work and he wanted to enjoy it. Although he does like No Doubt, there were some other songs I was looking to cover that he did not like, for example, “Black Horse and the Cherry Tree” by KT Tunstall.

We had decided that our second song would be “Animal Instinct” by the Cranberries. After our third pick, Norah Jones’ “Don’t Know Why,” he seemed to get a little more disinterested. It was like pulling teeth to get him to work a fourth which was Jewel, “You Were Meant for Me.” It is my least favorite on the CD. It was right before that recording that he had told me that four songs would be it.

David had wanted to start concentrating on writing his own music and recording on his own. I was a little hurt and angry and both discouraged and sad. I was having a lot of fun and I felt as if the CD was a personal accomplishment. I did have plans to make more of it at the time. Even though I was crushed, I did understand that he had his own goals. I personally seem to think it was more important for him because he still had a chance of pursuing a career in music where in reality it was only a dream for me. He far surpassed me in musical talent and he had nothing holding him back.

I had given the CD to Bryce’s cousin Laney, another who had always been supportive of me when I came into the family. She first worked at Random House and then worked her way up to a publicist in New York City. I was hoping she had some connections and could do something with it for me.

Since she liked the CD, she started telling me some of the things that I needed to do to go forward with it. It was at that moment that I realized that this was not in the cards for me. No matter how much I had dreamed of having a career in the music industry, it was just way to far from my reach, especially at this time in my life. I was married with children and not the type of person who likes change for that matter.

It took me a while to come to grips with the fact that my love for music was nothing but a most enjoyed hobby. Just as I expressed in my letter to Ellen, I finally accepted that this type of life was not for me, that I wasn’t even sure if I wanted it, and it was something I needed to accept on my own. With the unanswered questions in my mind and the unanswered letters to my most admired idol from my favorite television show, I never got the closure for which I was looking.

I wondered at times if the show American Idol was more of an obsession than the actual crush I had on its particular artists like Clay Aiken and Jason Castro. The show itself was a means of taking a person just like me and giving them an opportunity of a lifetime, one that I never got because when I was twenty-five, the show did not exist. Then I asked myself, if it did, would I have auditioned? I don’t know the answer to this question.

Between the ages of sixteen through twenty, I may have auditioned because I had more confidence, but as a twenty-one through twenty-five year old, my world was already moving in a much different direction.

I remember watching season two and the age limit being twenty-five and I was twenty-eight. I knew that auditioning was not even an option for me. Therefore, I didn’t think about it much. The next year they raised the age limit to twenty-eight but I was then twenty-nine. I don’t know if I looked at it as an excuse not to ever have to audition, not having the self-confidence to do it anyway, or if I was irritated that I never fit into the bracket to make that decision for myself.