Chapter 3: I’m Alive
“After
all, Ginger Rogers did everything that Fred Astaire did.
Lexie
Pierson entered the aerobics room and glanced at herself in the mirror. Her golden brown hair was ironically in a perfect
messy bun, with one ringlet cascading down her neck. She wore teal spandex capris, along with a
grey and teal Zumba tee her older sister Lucy had bought her in Billings the
week before. Even Lexie’s shoes matched
her outfit which is hard to do when looking for size 5 teal and grey
shoes. Everything about Lexie screamed
perfection: her hourglass figure, perfectly highlighted hair, natural looking
makeup, her straight posture, determined chin, and a
smile which exposed teeth that any orthodontist would covet. Lexie strode over to Lucy as Lucy struggled
to adjust her mic headset.
“Hey
sis!” Lexie sang in her ear.
Lucy
turned around and exclaimed, “Oh Lexie, I am so glad you made it!”
“Are you kidding? Did you really think I wouldn’t be here for
your big debut? I wouldn’t miss this for
the world!”
“Thanks
so much for coming…I feel more confident already knowing you’ve got my
back. Oh my wow…I love how your new
Zumba shirt look on you!”
“Thanks,
and check out how perfectly my shoes match.
You ready for this?”
“Ready
or not”, Lucy exclaimed.
Lexie was anxious for the class to
start because she was in desperate need of endorphins. She had been up all night crying after
another argument with her husband of only two years. She wanted desperately to tell Lucy all about
it and had even considered coming to class early so she could talk to Lucy, but
then thought better of it. “After all,
this is Lucy’s big day,” she thought to herself. Lexie knew that Lucy would be able to help
her with this problem because Lucy and Drew had been happily married for 20
years. “Why can’t I even hold mine
together for two?” Lexie wondered. Maybe after class, Lexie could talk to her sister
and receive wise counsel but right now, there was no way Lexie could let any
emotion show. There was no way she was
going to be anything less than perfect right now. Other people were coming in and
congratulating Lucy. “Today needs to be
about Lucy…not me,” she thought again.
Finally the warmup started and Lexie
lost herself in “feeling this moment”.
She was so proud of her sibling for following her dreams. The second song started with a grapevine to
the left and then a grapevine to the right.
Oh, I love this song, Lexie mused.
Michael Franti and Spearhead’s “I’m Alive” came pulsing through the
speakers.
“Everybody wants me to be who
they want me to be except you
All I wanna do is be with you”
All I wanna do is be with you”
As Lexie’s heart rate sped up, she
started thinking about how perfect she had to be for everyone. From the time she could remember, her parents
had told her to always look her best and be her best. She was never allowed to leave the house with
wrinkled clothing on and certainly was never allowed to have any hair out of
place. She remembered wishing she could
be more like her class mates who got to choose what they wore for school
pictures. One of her friends named Kat,
was able to wear her favorite grungy hoody for 2nd grade school
pictures. Kat’s mom had told her that
she should wear what she would want to remember, and Kat, for whatever reason,
had a strange obsession with that grey worn out hoody. Lexie, on the other hand, was forced to wear
a brand new stiff pink blouse with poofy sleeves with a grey wool skirt along
with itchy plaid tights and suffocating black mary jane shoes. As an eight year old, she had tried to
convince her mom to at least let her wear pants and comfortable tennis shoes
because the picture was only of her top half…but Lexie’s mom would not hear of
such nonsense. And so picture day came
and went year after year with Lexie wearing way too formal attire. And each year her longing for Kat’s freedom
in clothing haunted her. Oh what she
wouldn’t have given to wear her t-shirt with the rainbow and unicorn for just
one elementary school picture rather than looking like a kid off Toddlers and
Tiaras. But that was years ago, so why
couldn’t she let go of her perfectionism now?
Lexie and Jag were the new power
couple of Boomerang Valley. Jag had
graduated from college and had immediately taken over the family photography
business. He had an eye for that sort of
thing from a young age. He had actually
met Lexie as she had been a model for him in several of his senior portfolio
assignments. He was drawn to her perfect
beauty and knew she was the one for him.
However, he had no idea what a high maintenance woman he was marrying
and soon tired of his ever-perfect wife.
Why couldn’t she just let her hair down every now and again? Sometimes he longed to just have dinner on paper
plates while watching a football game in front of the tv. But in Lexie’s world, the table always had to
be set complete with table cloth, matching dishes, and exquisite serving
dishes, even if they were only having Top Ramen. Oh sure Jag loved showing off their
immaculate new home to their friends but sometimes he would walk by a picture
on the wall and knock it off center ever so slightly just to see how long it
took Lexie to notice it. She always
noticed it the first time walking by and would straighten it. But one day Lexie went too far. Jag had just poured himself the last of his
favorite and hard to find white-grape
peach juice into a glass when his cell phone rang. He left the room to take the call to set up a
bridal photo shoot and when he got back in the kitchen, the glass had been
drained of it’s liquid and had been washed and shined till it sat sparkling in
the drainer by the sink. Seriously!
Jag’s mom had warned him that
appearance wasn’t everything. Jag had
always prided himself on being dressed in the latest men’s fashion and making
sure he too didn’t have a hair out of place.
And he had liked that about Lexie at first. However, the longer they were married, he had
started to let his hair down, so to speak, at least while they were in the
comfort of their own home. To his
clients however, he would always look like he had just walked off a GQ magazine
photoshoot. He and Lexie made the
picture perfect couple to outsiders, but inside the walls of their own home
they were crumbling.
Lexie demanded perfection of herself
as well as everybody around her. This
made her a hard woman to live with.
Lexie decided to throw Jag a huge surprise birthday party. She hired the best caterer and DJ in all of
Boomerang Valley. The one little problem
though was Jag hated his birthdays. He
would have been happier if his birthday came and went without a single person
wishing him a happy birthday rather than having 24 hours of facebook
notifications buzzing on his phone constantly.
So when he came home from a family of seven photo shoot the night of his
birthday, the last thing he had expected or wanted was a houseful of people
yelling surprise. And he certainly had
not wanted that loud obnoxious music. Jag
hated to dance…that was Lexie’s thing, not his.
But he had pretended a smile that night and went with it.
So you can just imagine how hurt
Lexie was when two months later on her birthday she received nothing but an “Oh
yeah, it’s your birthday today. Happy
birthday babe,” from her newly betrothed.
How dare he not treat her like royalty?
The seeds of bitterness had started to fester from that day. Any time a holiday came up, Lexie imposed her
traditions on Jag and every holiday ended up in another argument by the end of
the night. Why was Jag so laid back all
the time? Didn’t he understand how
important precision and order were? I
mean he looked like he had it all together when they got engaged, but the more
Lexie got to know him, the more he irritated her. Why couldn’t he just do things her way?
Last night, Lexie’s inlaws had
popped in for an impromptu visit from out of town. Lexie was mortified that they had not called
ahead. She would have washed the
bedding, set out clean towels, and cooked the best gourmet food had she
known. But instead, she was embarrassed that
her in-laws had to walk into a dusty guest bedroom with stale sheets, no
matching towels, and a dinner of mac n cheese.
She spent the whole evening rushing around doing chores trying to get
everything just so that she missed out on getting to visit with Jag’s parents
at all. Jag was frustrated that Lexie
couldn’t just “be”. His parents hardly
ever visited and there was a lot of catching up to do. By the end of the evening, Lexie was
exhausted from all the housework she had crammed in a small time and Jag was
mad that Lexie had all but ignored both him and his parents.
Once they got in their
bedroom and closed the door, Jag couldn’t handle it anymore.
“Why don’t you pay
attention to me when my parents are here?” he demanded.
“Why
didn’t you tell me they were coming so I could have been more prepared?” she
retorted.
“Lexie,
honestly honey you have got to get a grip!
The whole world isn’t going to fall apart if my parents don’t have
matching “his and hers” towels when they wake up to shower in the morning. I would have much rather you spend the time
with us, relaxing. Oh but that’s
right…you don’t know how to relax! Why
do you have to be so uptight all the time?”
“Oh
I see how it is Jag. I kill myself
trying to make our home beautiful for your family and this is the thanks I
get? Do you have any idea how hard it is
to be me?” Lexie wanted to yell…she
wanted to scream but with her inlaws just down the hall, she thought better of
it. Her jaw tightened as she whispered, “And
why do you always pick a fight with me when I am at the point of exhaustion?”
Jag
clenched his fists, grabbed his pillow, and started to storm to the door. “Where are you going? You can’t sleep on the couch…then your
parents will know.”
“Know
what, Lexie? How high maintenance a wife
I married? A wife so determined to be
perfect that we are spending money we don’t even have on pedicures and
manicures! Seriously, I love you but
this is getting ridiculous. You know
what? Maybe my parents should know that
we aren’t the happy lovebirds they think we are.”
“You
wouldn’t dare,” cried Lexie. "If your
parents find out, they for sure will tell my parents and that’s just unacceptable. I am trying so hard to please you, but the
harder I try the harder I fail. Don’t
you want a clean house? Don’t you want a
beautiful wife? If you made more money I could afford to hire maids and cooks and then I could spend more time with you.”
Jag
couldn’t believe what he was hearing. He
sat on the edge of the bed, clutching his pillow even tighter. Lexie just didn’t get it. He loved her dearly but she had no clue how
to reciprocate his love. Lexie had
worked herself into a frenzy and no matter how hard she tried, the tears kept
coming. Jag calmly stood up and stated,
“I will be watching Sports Center if you need me." And with that he left Lexie with a befuddled
look on her face.
“Sports Center?” she thought
blankly. This is what two years of
marriage had come to? Lexie covered her
face with her hands and wept. The
imperfection in her marriage was smacking her squarely in her face. How could she be perfect in everything except
the thing that mattered most to her? How
could she get on the same page as Jag?
Forget page….they weren’t even in the same book! Lucy will know how to help, she consoled
herself. “Now Lexie, go to sleep…everything will be better in the morning.” She didn’t know how, but she had to believe
it to make it through the night, without her husband in her bed. “Everything will be better in the morning,”
she repeated as if saying it over and over again would make everything perfect
again.
…Lexie
pondered the lyrics, “I’m Alive” as she danced on cue perfectly to everything
Lucy was doing in front of the class.
She sadly thought to herself, “If I can’t be perfect in everything, I am
not truly alive.” As a matter of fact,
Lexie had pushed herself to such unrealistic expectations that she was slowly
dying from the inside out. As Lexie
looked at Lucy, she coveted her sister’s seemingly “perfect” life. “Well, at least I look amazing,” she thought
as she caught her reflection in the mirror.
“At least I don’t look like that chubby woman. Why would she even leave the house looking
like that? And to go to Zumba? Didn’t her mom ever teach her proper
etiquette? Does she really think that
wearing black will make her look thinner?
I can’t wait to talk to Lucy after class. I need some marriage advice...and soon.”
Michael Franti & Spearhead. I'm
Alive (Life Sounds Like). Capitol Records, 2013.
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