DAY 2: DEAR CRUSH

Dear Marshall,

I have spent the last month trying to separate the man from the personas that you have created. I have read up on your story, listened to lots of your songs, am planning on watching your movie, but I think people continually evolve. You caught my attention with your most recent songs Not Afraid and I Love The Way You Lie. I understand that Airplanes 2 is also a recent recording. When I compare those songs to the earlier songs, I can see how much you've grown. Although, Lose Yourself, which is from 8 Mile, indicates that you were already beginning to move in this direction.

I understand why the songs that launched your career were so angry (Slim Shady), and contrite (Eminem), and moderated (Marshall Mathers). You explain that in Lose Yourself. "What if you had just one shot, one chance, would you take it?" You needed all of that to take your shot, and it worked. You were punching through the floor, instead of walking through the door, because you weren't invited into what was an all-black hip hop club. You had to work 10x harder to prove you were as good as they were. And you did it. In fact, I think you exceeded your own expectations. I don't think anyone knows what the downside of fame is going to feel like until it arrives on their doorstep. You weren't prepared. Your wife wasn't prepared and no one is writing a handbook. By the way, I am a writer. If you want to work on that project together, that would be totally cool. HOW TO DEAL WITH FAME: A BEGINNER'S GUIDE. I can see that wouldn't be your kind of title. HOW TO DEAL WITH FAME: KNOWING WHEN IT'S TIME TO TELL PEOPLE TO TAKE IT THROUGH THE MIDDLE FINGER. Yeah, the title is a little too long. We can work on it.

Anyway, the music was awesome. You were being paid to do what you loved. You had lots of anger issues from your childhood and it was therapeutic letting it out. But then the fame itself generated crap all on its own. Your marriage went to hell twice and that made for more anger than you could handle. You started doing drugs to take the edge off, because it was all just too much. And you had to have been thinking, "When did the dream turn into a nightmare?" And still you wrote because you had to or you would explode. The hate was so intense. The only love you had in your heart was for your daughter and your ex-wife was making that relationship hard on you. Nothing was coming easy.

Life was teaching you so many lessons and they were all bad. Trust no one. Love no one. There is no such thing as loyalty. Everyone screws you over in the end. Count on no one but yourself. The public will love you as long you are successful, but they will turn on you like wolves. Everyone is out for number one, so you better be out for number one, too. Screw forgiveness. You tried that with Kim and she just screwed you again. Fool me once, shame on you . Fool me twice, shame on me. Friends are only your friends based on your success rate. You really are in this thing alone. The only person who loves me for me are my daughters. That is it. That is the only part of my heart that is open. Everyone else can keep the hell out because I don't trust you, don't need you, don't want you, and don't believe you. The need and want part might be a lie, but the don't believe part is true, and makes the need and want part too scary.

I know a little bit how you feel. Friends have let me down. The last three relationships I have been in have been horrific. Well, two out of three anyway. But they were all very painful. You do that enough times and you get scared of even trying again. It's easier to have superficial relationships than to have a relationship with someone real. A real person has the capacity to hurt you. You and I are a lot alike. We are both on this road of reclamation; we are in the process of reclaiming our lives. You have already come so far by going to drug rehab, for you and no one else, and owning that. However, in order to really gain any ground, you have to go all the way. You have to spend some time digging out your pain, looking at it, and letting go. That is how you get your life back. Eventually, you will meet someone, hopefully not in the fame business, who is a real person and you will be cautious about the whole thing, but you will let her in. And it will be a beautiful day to start out the rest of your life. I am hoping for the same kind of thing for myself. It's not healthy going through this world alone. However, it isn't healthy jumping into something before you have mentally and emotionally "cleaned house."

Wishing you much happiness,
Robin


image blatantly ripped off from Miss Angie at My So-Called Chaos