Julia Jacklin at Teragram Ballroom, "Crushing," and Having Become Emotionally Useless

I watched the first song of Julia Jacklin’s set through some guy’s empty ear-gauge-holes. His ear lobes were just dangling there, and as I clutched my beer close to my chest, if I positioned myself just right, Julia fit perfectly in the hole. It’s not that I wanted to watch the set like this, but it was an entertaining observation that I reveled in. She sang Body.

Crushing, which came out in March, hit me like a freight train. I was already low, searching desperately for a new job that, in my mind, would save me. The job I was in was the lethal combination of boring and dramatic and it consistently left me completely drained and incapable of doing anything but going home and laying in bed. This made the act of searching for a job a ruthless cycle of quick, half-hearted applications, followed by uninspired phone interviews and subsequent rejections.

It’s not even that Crushing is sad. If ingested with the right seasoning it’s actually quite hopeful. At its core, it is about reimaging yourself. In her case, in the aftermath of a romantic relationship. In my case, after a professional one. It’s the uncertainty of where you, as an individual, begins, separate from other pillars you leaned on as a part of yourself for so long. A significant other, or a job.

Since Crushing’s release, I had found that new job.

And right now, bright eyed and bushy tailed, it still feels like I’ve been saved.

Gauges had shifted enough that I now had a full view of the stage from where I was standing. As we floated through the beginning of the set, it occured to me that since my new job I hadn’t gone out alone to a show. I used to go to shows alone all the time; if no one wanted to enjoy the music with me, I didn’t let that stop me from enjoying it myself. But as I built up my group of friends in Los Angeles, the difference in experience I had between going with friends and going alone became glaringly evident. Things were just more fun with other people.

But there will always be music that you love and no one else is crazy about or maybe everyone is busy that night or maybe something tells you you need to enjoy it alone; Julia Jacklin is the latter for me. I bought myself a ticket and waited quietly until it was sold out to tell anyone else I was going.

Unusual for a group of friends who has linked concert iCals.

Notable because for the first time in my adult life I was here happy, and not in emotional distress, trying to burn off the frustration of a day of work.

Since I started my new job, my cat started using the litter box again.

Starting around the time I moved back to LA, he’d gone through phases, sometimes using it and sometimes running around the apartment yowling until he had to stop wherever he was to drop a deuce. When I told the vet about it at his yearly check up, they said he was overweight and anxious and they put him on a diet and gave him a prescription for Prozac.

I asked if they could do the same for me.

It worked a little bit, for a while, but still there would be times when I would find surprises hidden behind the TV or on the rug next to my bed. And it wasn’t right away that I noticed, but after I put in my two weeks notice at my old job and started getting in the mindset for a new job, the cat started regularly using the litter box again. It’s been two months since I started that job and we are proudly two months accident free.

This is good because I don’t have to scoop cat shit out from behind the TV anymore.

This is bad because I realized that I was so stressed out, so unhappy, that my cat was equally stressed out and unhappy. I channeled this into going out and getting drunk at shows alone, he channeled it into using my hardwood floors as a bathroom.

Julia had, at this point, become a beautiful backdrop to this train of thought and as I re-focused my attention to the stage, I felt tears start to well up.

I’ve become pretty Emotionally Useless.

I can’t even think about my cat without crying, but it’s also a jarring revelation that your feelings and moods can have such an effect on the things around you.

She started singing When The Family Flies In and I couldn’t stop the tears anymore. In this moment I was glad to be alone because how would I explain to whoever I was with the images that race through my mind when I hear this song?

You know it’s bad when the family flies in / Just to stand by your side.

Mostly I think of my family, I think of what it will be like when it’s time for my cat to go, I think about whether or not anyone will be around when I go, and whether or not they’ll know I want to be planted as tree seeds in St. John’s Cemetery.

Leaving us no reprieve, she starts on Don’t Let The Kids Win and I manage to hold myself together until don’t let your grandmother die / while you’re away / a cheap trip to Thailand’s not gonna make up for never getting to say goodbye which isn’t very long into the song at all, but I am swaying and crushing my empty beer cup, staring wet-eyed at the stage. The guilt of having moved halfway across the country to chase a warm and selfish life in Los Angeles sets in. It’s all I can do to let my nose run a little bit so the people standing around me won’t hear me sniffle.

And don't let the time go by / without sitting your mother down / and asking what life was like for her / before you came to be around / and tell her it's okay if she puts herself first / us kids we'll be alright if we're not the center of her universe.

I think about calling my mom the next night and maybe I do but I would never ask her something so personal, it’s just not the kind of family we are.

Julia sings a few more songs with us and lets us out on a high note, bringing the opener (Black Belt Eagle Scout) back on for Pressure to Party. As I file out of the venue, finding a trash can for my demolished beer cup, I wonder when I became so Emotionally Useless.

I don’t think it’s just me, either. Never before in my life have I had a group of people I could communicate openly with about my fears and anxieties. I wonder if they ever did, either, or if part of growing up is learning to talk about those things with each other. Although, I consider my parents and I’m not convinced they’ve ever felt anxious or depressed. Even with the few friends I keep in touch with from high school and college communication has become more open and supportive.

Like, we never used to talk about how we were so anxious our heart rates were so high it made us nervous to go on long runs because even though that’s supposed to fix your anxiety it might also send you into cardiac overdrive and imminent death.

A lot of things feel like that these days.

In the Uber home I consider this state of being Emotionally Useless. Even now that I’m “happy,” I still cry at sad things and at happy things. I can’t even contain myself in public; I just cried through the better part of a concert and earlier in the week I had done the same at the movies, watching Avengers: Endgame. I have regular panic attacks at my desk at work or laying in bed trying to fall asleep and then I have another one when I consider that even if I do fall asleep I might never wake up.

How long would it take them to find me? Would they know I want to be buried as tree seeds in St. John’s Cemetery?

I finally get home and as I’m walking to my front door I notice that someone has planted a handful of sunflowers in the giant pot in the middle of the courtyard. For one odd reason or another, I look up to the roof of the building across from my front door.

Last summer we had a dove living around our apartment complex. Doves are not native to the area so we knew it had probably escaped a wedding or magic show or wherever they still use doves these days. My neighbors would leave little trays of birdseed out on the back patio and lots of mornings I would walk out to go to work and find myself inching around the dove, who was sitting on the ground, pecking at the birdseed.

The rooftop ledge across the courtyard from my front door was where it spent most nights and it felt to me like a strange guardian. I could stumble in from whatever show or whatever bar at whatever time and the dove would be there, staring at my door, waiting for me to get back.

It disappeared around Labor Day.

Why I felt inclined to look for it, I don’t know. I knew it wouldn’t be there.

Maybe part of me needed to believe something was out there, watching out for me.

Maybe part of me needed to see that it wasn’t there but still feel that there were people out there, watching out for me.