Reflections on High Fidelity

Back in October, I was one of the lucky few to see the stage musical High Fidelity in Boston, MA. Since then the musical opened and closed on Broadway and apparently was not well accepted at all...which I really can't figure out. I mean, truly, I thought it was the most hysterical show I have seen in my entire life. I don't think I've ever laughed that hard or smiled that much in a theater. The worst part about the show's lack of success is that I will live on with only vague memories of the brilliant music and lyrics -- there will be no original cast recording a la Rent or Wicked, etc., etc., to add to my collection.

Granted that's all a side note to the larger issue at hand, but more than worth a mention considering how brilliant and horribly underrated the show was. Truly, one of the most memorable and enjoyable theater experiences of my life.

What I really aim to address with this post is one of the moments in High Fidelity, the novel, that lingers with me most poignantly despite not making it beyond the page to either of the other incarnations of the story (musical or film)...

At one point, as the main character, Rob, is reflecting on his life he talks about memories of childhood and how he looks back at himself at 8 years old, let's just say, and wishes he could apologize to that kid for what he's done to his life. At 8 he had full potential to go anywhere, be anything, see and do everything imaginable, but at 30+ he's tapped out, tired, stuck in the course of the decisions he's made, and he looks back and feels guilty for fucking it up for that kid who had so much hope.

For someone like me who's always prided herself on having no regrets -- the obvious thought process has always gone something like this: we wouldn't be be where we were if it wasn't for the sum total of everything leading up to that point, so really how can you regret anything (if you're living a good, honest life) if it's gotten you to the point you are presently, and the point you are presently, being the only thing that exists, is all you have (the future not having yet arrived and not being a guarantee and the past already over and impossible to regain...) -- well, being such a person who lives so fervently without regret, it's amazing how much I can empathize with this guilt over what the adult version of the life has become.

Just like Rob I would like to go back in time and apologize to that kid -- the little girl that was me -- because really I've screwed it up. And, maybe, someday I'll look back and say, "Oh, yeah, this cross crosses this t and that dot dots that i and it makes total sense that x came before y, blah, blah, blah" and I'll subscribe some meaning to the course of the events of my life that will make me feel better about why I did what I did or became what I became. But, really, in my heart, I will always know that assigning meaning after the fact is nothing compared to the honest-to-god earth-shatteringly powerful feeling you get when, in any given moment, you are living and doing exactly what you know you should be. And that's not a feeling I have very often. Especially the older I get.

Ostensibly, High Fidelity is about love and romance and relationships (not to mention the more important topic of pop music as the soundtrack of our lives!), and the "fidelity" is an obvious play on words for recorded sound as much as for commitment within relationships...but there's something else in there: Fidelity to oneself. Truth, honesty, and fulfillment to oneself. Sure, Rob may be a complete commitment-phobe who doesn't want to grow up, face responsibility, or settle down with one girl and miss out on all the other fish in the sea -- he's a perpetual beta male of the most attractive and repulsive kind.

But, more than that, Rob is struggling with his lack of fidelity to self. We require our partners to show devotion, care, honesty, and monogamy to us, but we don't really show it to ourselves. It's ironic, actually, that we ask so much more of the other people in our lives than our own selves -- it really doesn't make sense. Because, in the end, if we're alone in our skins, shouldn't our own fidelity mean more than someone else's?

Ultimately, and I know this from the experience of having been betrayed and left and cheated on by someone I deeply trusted and cared for, we are more concerned with how faithful other people are to us than our own faithfulness to ourselves. And that's completely ass backward. But I feel it, even now, I feel how I want my friends and family and those around me to honor me, to be true to me -- I feel so acutely any pain of judgment or criticism from them, how much I want to be cared for and treated with faithful regard. Yet, I disregard myself -- and is this the same as not setting boundaries? This feeling of complete and total unfaithfulness to self?

So, here's my apology to an 8-year-old version of myself -- so pretty and spirited and independent and knowledgeable beyond her years; a girl who, in my feeble capabilities, clearly never had a chance to grow into her full potential -- I'm sorry I put you second and everyone else first. I'm sorry I didn't honor your needs or require more of those around you. I'm sorry I stayed with that beta for 6 1/2 years and didn't question or challenge the emptiness I felt. I'm sorry I didn't hear you. I'm sorry I held you to an impossible standard of strength and emotional distance and that I didn't accept your weaknesses as human and forgivable. I'm sorry I didn't ask for more. I'm sorry I made you give away so much.

In a perfect world, I'd right some of the wrongs. I'd ask for more, give less. Be true to myself, not sacrifice so much. Require something more of myself. But I don't have it in me. And if I do, I'm too scared to let it out. Instead, I'm going to put my head down and keep working and -- quite ignorantly -- hope that my karma is good enough to bring something worthwhile in.

I'm going to continue to look outside myself for validation and fidelity. And, maybe the scariest truth is that I've always dated beta males because I myself relate to them personally in that I, too, am ineffective and weak...

"I'm just a mirror of a mirror myself. All the things that I do. And the next time I fall I'm gonna have to recall it isn't love its only something new..."