I used to think life had no meaning.
Then I found Britney Spears.
I have always connected to Britney, ever since she debuted on Total Request Live. She tapped her pencil, bored in school, and as soon as that fateful music started, “Oh Baby, Baby.”
I was hooked.
I’ve always had these weird parallels to Britney. We are both Sagittarians, are close in age, and it always seemed like when she was struggling, I would be too. And rooting for her was almost like rooting for myself.
When I had my first of three nervous breakdowns, I was a teenager, everything invovling puberty was a real struggle for me and my parents didn’t know what to do with me. They sent me to Florida, to live with my grandparents for a few weeks. I woke up one morning and my Grandfather said, “That girl you like went to Vegas.”
Britney had eloped in Vegas, and later that week annulled it. It felt like everyone was watching her, speculating about her life choices and seemed she just wanted space – reflected in her song “over protected” when she sings “I need love, time and space – I’m so fed up with people telling me to be someone else but me.”
I remember when I heard “I’m not a girl, not yet a woman, for the first time I sobbed driving down the street, I connected so hard to that song, it’s insane – and in my case that was more about my gender journey, but I digress.
The summer of 2007 is when Britney seemed to start struggling more. She shaved her head, which I have my theories on why she did that, but it doesn’t matter, it’s not my business, it’s not my journey. Her life is hers.
What I DO know is that I always believed that she would make her come back, she would rise again. So when it was announced that she would be the opening performance for the MTV movie awards on September 9, 2007, I was PUMPED!
She was promoting her new song “Gimme Gimme More”, which was different from her previous work, but I didn’t care. I was just so happy she was going to make her big comeback!
So I went to my brother’s house, because he had a big screen tv, and we had been spending a lot of time together because of family matters.
Watching the red carpet, practically sweating, I couldn’t wait to see what she would wear – would she have a snake again? She had a snake one time! What will the choreography look like? I wondered, but barely cared. I needed this performance. I needed this moment.
As the host, Chris rock, started his opening monologue, I started to bite my lip, irritated with a shitty punching down joke he made about Britney, but I tried to stay positive. As I stood, swaying in front of the TV, as if I was waiting for a Quarter Back to score a touchdown, my brothers phone started ringing,
“Mother fucker, you better turn that shit off or answer it or whatever cause I’m about to watch my bitch pop and lock!”
And just before they started to introduce Britney, my brother hung up his phone.
“Dad died.”
My world shattered.
Like shattered glass.
Much like Britney described in her song “shattered glass”
“When your world falls apart like shattered glass.”
In that performance, the one I have still never watched, from what I read, she nearly cried from start to finish, her hair was not done in a flattering way, which only reminded people she had shaved her head, and her lyrics were out of sync while she was performing.
Britney started to spiral out, as I was starting to grieve my dad.
She lost custody of her kids, entered a psychiatric facility.
It was very surreal to watch my hero go through a very public breakdown, as I was going through the most traumatic point in my life, up until that point. It was weirdly comforting to keep believing that Britney would make it out of the storm, I was able to believe that I would, too.
It has been years since my last break down, which centered around becoming a parent, and suddenly I felt even more connected to her, than ever.
We both have two kids, that we are trying to raise as best we can, coping with mental health hurdles, while trying to raise happy, well adjusted people. My postpartum depression and anxiety has created a stronger connection than ever before.
After I got help, I became a completely different person.
And by “help”, I don’t mean the hospital or meds, though those were stepping tones to my getting healthy. But the people in my life that became my life-saving support system, and ridding myself of the toxic people that were only making things worse – much like Britney sang about in the song “toxic” – “you’re toxic, I’m slipping under”.
When Britney lost her freedom, I tried to speak out. People laughed. It was just a big joke, that I was a “Brit-Brit Fan”. But watching her gain her freedom, feels like a symbolic chain has been lifted off of me.
She is my hero. Her existence helps me to connect to my higher self, and watching her fight, for more than a decade, to be taken seriously, is helping me to step into my own light. Because now… I…. am…. Stronger.
“Now
I’m stronger than yesterday.
Now it’s nothing but a-my way
my loneliness ain’t killing me no more.
I…
I’m stronger.
A come on now.”
BRITNEY ARMY 