The Kick Inside

Last night, I went with my sister to a Pat Benatar concert and cried through most of it.

I was only 4 when Pat Benatar released her first album in 1979. At some point, either MTV or my sister, Jennie, introduced me to this firecracker and her thrilling voice. Jennie had all of her records, and we played them over and over, trying to nail the high notes like Pat.

She is not the sort of musician you outgrow. At house parties in my 20s and 30s, by the time we had wine lips my friends and I would be singing Pat’s greatest hits. My sister and I evolved our act, playing air guitar and kicking over “amplifiers” in the form of cardboard boxes.

In 2009, my friends and I saw Pat Benatar in concert at Ravinia, a North Shore amphitheater with shitty sightlines and acres of lawn seating. Blondie also headlined, so it was an epic occasion even though, in truth, it wasn’t much different than our living room singalongs, for all I was able to see of the stage.

Jennie was jealous. Pat has served as a placeholder in our relationship. Until recently, my sister and I hadn’t lived in the same state since high school. It wasn’t uncommon for us to go for years without seeing each other, but when we did get together, Pat, inevitably, was part of the reunion. You’d think we’d know all the lyrics forwards and backwards, but belting into our beer-bottle microphones, we’d fuck up often and then blame Pat for changing the words up on us.

Pat made it up to us by coming to little ol’ East Texas, tacking Tyler onto a 40-city tour. Last night, we saw her up close and personal (relatively speaking) at UT Tyler’s Cowan Center. The auditorium there seats 2,000, so unlike my previous experience, I could make out Pat’s facial expressions, feel the vibrations of her five-octave vocal range, and admire her stylings on air guitar. (I never knew she played, too!)

And to think I almost didn’t go. The week prior, I started a new medication that seemed to be working, but before it kicked in I’d fallen woefully behind at work. Before I knew the previous med adjustment would do more harm than good, I’d applied for my second writer’s residency at Taleamor Park and got accepted even though I couldn’t show in my work proposal that I’d made much progress since my stay there last year. The concert was on a weeknight, just three days before my departure and one day beyond a big fat hairy deadline. In fact, in the days leading up to the concert, I had three scary deadlines. Meeting them all seemed impossible. (Spoiler alert: It was.)

One of the assignments was for a new client, and the others were for a publisher I’ve worked with for over 15 years. You know that thing you do with bills when there’s not enough money to pay them all? How you decide who’s going to get paid on time based on the consequences of not paying? I did the same sort of risk analysis:

• If I blew the new client’s deadline, I’d make a bad first impression and might not get hired again, whereas I had a successful track record with the other organization.
• My learning curve for the new client’s industry was steep, whereas I’d been covering the other industry for a decade and a half.

I decided I could probably pull something together beyond the last minute for my longtime client and my tardiness would be met with grace.

Having made the decision, I still had to pull it off with little time and even less energy. In response to my fretting, my therapist said, “What’s the worst that can happen? They won’t hire you again?” She paused while I considered this worst-case scenario.

“Would that be the end of the world?” she asked.

I was proud of the piece I wrote for the new client. I ended up writing well past midnight and got it in a day late, but my assigning editor loved it.

I was mentally depleted when I turned my attention to the remaining two assignments. Granted an extended “drop-dead deadline,” I did my best with the scant amount of time I’d left myself to research and write two articles. Cue James Ingram.

I wasn’t proud of the work I submitted. However, I was somewhat pleased and greatly relieved when I clicked send. Quality notwithstanding, my writing marathon suggested my energy levels were rebounding. I starting planning my outfit and watching blue eye shadow tutorials for the concert the next day.

At the end of the workday on Tuesday, just as it was time for me to start getting ready, I got an email about both pieces. There was one word of that carefully written, constructive email that stuck in my mind: Disappointing. (He actually wrote “a little disappointing,” which is somehow worse.)

I was devastated. I was still strung out from working all day and night to meet the drop-dead deadline. I shed some tears but made myself stop. I had blue eye shadow to put on.

Pat blared on the speakers as we drove to Tyler. We had good seats. I had on green skinny jeans and magenta boots. The crowd was composed of middle-aged people and I realized I was one of them and I was fine with it. I was with Jennie and, together, we were about to see Pat perform live. Our lifelong band mate.

Pat and the band came out and, without preamble, launched into “All Fired Up.” The opening lines grabbed me like they never had before. The chorus, which I’d been singing for years, made me tear up, and once I started crying I couldn’t stop. Disappointing my longtime client brought to mind all the other ways I’ve fallen short of expectations—others’ as well as my own—due to a prolonged and ruthless bout of my chronic illness. This year’s especially severe flareup has taken so much away from me. Listening to Pat, I thought, “But has it given back?” Will it prove to be the kick inside that spurs my self-actualization?

I don’t believe everything happens for a reason. But I believe we’re meant to find meaning in events that bring us to our knees, in gratitude or defeat.

“All Fired Up” sparked an epiphany in me. It’s small and flickery now, like a pilot light, but I can tend to it. I can make sure it doesn’t go out.

Looking for a reason / searching for a sign / reaching out with both hands / I gotta feel the kick inside /

Now I believe there comes a time
when everything just falls in line.
We live and learn from our mistakes.
The deepest cuts are healed by faith.

It’s a message worth repeating, and the song ends with Pat doing just that. Six times. My blue eye shadow didn’t stand a chance.

There are Pat Benatar songs that I love much more, and the lyrics to some of those hit their mark last night. (I said you can’t hide on the inside /
All the pain you’ve ever felt…) But not with as much force as that very first song of the evening. The realization struck like lightning that my recent ordeal might be as much of a teacher as a taker.

It was a bucket-list kind of night, and probably my last chance to see Pat live (although I thought that last time, too). I’m glad I shared it with my sister.

On the way out, we bought matching tank tops with HEART BREAKER emblazoned on the front. When I got home, I realized it might have a deeper meaning for me. Is it inevitable that I will disappoint people as I move into this new phase of life? Am I making decisions, based on my limitations was well as my wildest dreams, that will render certain relationships obsolete? Have I learned from my mistakes? Must things fall apart before they fall in line?

Is it the end of the world?

Is it my time?

Is this my sign?

I don’t know when and how, but—now I believe—everything will fall in line.

Now I believe there comes a time
when everything just falls in line.
We live and learn from our mistakes.
The deepest cuts are healed by faith.
Now I believe

All fired up
(Now I believe there comes a time)
All fired up
(When everything just falls in line)
All fired up
(We live an’ learn from our mistakes)
All fired up, fired up, fired up, hey
(The deepest cuts are healed by faith)

— Written by Kerryn Tolhurst