Thank You, Whitney…. You Saved My Life

On Saturday nights I would walk down the street from the room I was renting in the upstairs of someone’s house in the small Vermont town of Brattleboro, in the direction of a place I hoped I’d find friends.

I was on my own for the first time after dropping out of college and then being asked to leave my parent’s house where I’d languished for 5 months after coming out at age 20. When a loving but firm nudge from someone I’ll be eternally grateful to sent me one step at a time in the direction of my future, I found a minimum wage job at the Chamber of Commerce and started my life over again.

I didn’t know a soul and didn’t know how to meet anyone. I was shy and had always relied on someone else to do the talking for me. What I did know was that there was a new gay bar that had opened up in the basement of the former Methodist church over on Elliot Street, so early on Saturday nights I’d walk down there, through the heavy wooden doorway and past the colorful chameleon sign at the entrance that said “Colors” and nervously descend the red carpeted stairs into the darkness.

But the excitement of being around people who were like me was dampened by the fear that even in the midst of “family” I still wouldn’t feel accepted.

I didn’t understand how all this worked. I had grown up in an even smaller town nearby where I’d attended every high school dance and searched out a secluded spot in the “make-out section” of the bleachers to hide yet still be there. I knew something was different about me then but even in that dark bar a few years later where I should have felt comfortable I was still terrified.

“Colors” wasn’t a big place though it was a surprisingly nice gathering place for a working class town. There was a big bar, a small, elevated dance floor, some areas to stand and talk, and a ring of tables around the  perimeter. I’d seek out one of the empty tables as far away from the crowd as possible and using a pile of napkins I’d begin writing down observances, in part to practice my writing but more, to pretend I was busy so that no one would approach me. It worked well.

From my vantage point I could passively watch as people came in, people like me, and I got to know them by sight if not by name. They looked so…. normal, like anyone I would see on the street. The only difference was that the boys would wander up to the dance floor with the boys, and the girls with the girls.

But still I couldn’t get comfortable and I didn’t know why.

I didn’t make much money at my job; just enough to rent my room and buy some food one meal at a time because there was nowhere to store any more than that. I surely didn’t have enough to buy a drink at the bar but my discomfort there was so great that I had to figure something out.

So I decided that if I was really careful with my money I could afford a 6-pack of beer to keep in my room and I would drink a couple before I went to the bar. It did take the edge off but I didn’t realize at the time that it was sending me down a path of secret drinking that would take me years to recover from. But that’s a story for later….

On the night of my birthday, I arrived early and with money I had saved, I summoned the courage to order my first drink from Sally, the bartender. She asked me what I wanted and because I had no experience with real drinks, I asked her to decide. Then I told her it was my birthday. “Well happy birthday! The drink is on me!” She reached out and put her hand on mine. It was the first time anyone had touched me or spoken to me in that bar. I blushed furiously and was grateful that the darkness obscured my embarrassment.

But the drink only helped so much. There I was after months of going into Colors and I still knew no one. I was alone in the crowd. For a couple hours I watched people wiggle around on the dance floor and finally decided to leave. If I couldn’t be comfortable there among people like me, I despaired that I would never be comfortable anywhere.

I walked back through the room as people were filing in past me. The music got louder and then that Woooooz! sound that started the new song from Whitney Houston played and some woman nearby excitedly looked around for somebody to dance with, screaming “I Wanna Dance with Somebody!!” and grabbed my hand and dragged me out to the dance floor. I don’t remember who she was — I think she wiggled off to dance with somebody else and left me there — but she and Whitney Houston broke the spell for me that night. Somehow, I knew I was going to be okay.

That was 25 years ago, and though I can’t say that my life changed instantly, I knew I could start to find places to fit in with my community. I joined the women’s softball league and though I didn’t get to know people well right away, I was at least recognized enough to be waved at if someone saw me on the street.

When I heard last night that Whitney’s tumultuous life had come to an end, I flashed back to that awkward time in my life when she and I were just in our early 20s and I was writing on napkins in the dark and she was catching a ride on a star that would eventually explode.

I realized that I no longer have a chance to tell her what her life and career meant to me, how her music lifted me out of the dark basement of that old church to a place filled with hope, or how those around me, equally awkward and drinking their way through the discomfort, were transformed by her. I guess maybe the anonymity we were afforded to wrestle our way though that important  stage was denied her, delayed until she could only succumb to the excesses that most of us made our way past when we were young.

So I say to you now, Whitney, on behalf of a formerly young, frightened lesbian whose life was changed by yours, thank you for the sacrifices that fame asked of you and for reminding all of us how fragile we really are even when we seem to “have it all”.

Didn’t we, almost?