Rubberband Girl

by Kate Bush

Best listened to: Getting ready for the day, or after an exhausting one.

You experience discomfort more than most. When something doesn’t fit right, or scratches at the nape of your neck, it occupies 40% of your mental state all day. Forget about a papercut. When you get one, the pain in the moment is looped into the upcoming inconvenience of your next few days. Washing dishes with a bandaid? Sensory nightmare. Your most useful appendage requires delicate use. When your nose is stuffed up, you long for the days when you can breathe freely again. You feel like a dripping faucet. You curse your nose for making you its tissue slave. It’s like your body doesn’t want you to be happy.

Everyone else dons their coats and buttons with ease. You sweat and wince every time you have to leave the house. You think of all you have accomplished and how much more you could if this stupid finger was healed. Look at all the people with perfect bodies and faculties. All the skin they need. They don’t know how good they have it.

This dark and whimsical deep cut could have been in Labyrinth, complete with Muppet choir. Kate’s gotten her due from the 80s nostalgia of Stranger Things, but mild fans of hers may not remember this one. The oft-forgot sister isn’t about any canon literature, but just getting through the fucking day. It’s a hype-up as well as a breakdown. It’s another request to God: can I navigate life without burning out?

When women entered the business world, there wasn’t a huge shift in domestic responsibility. To this day, women do the majority of housework, even when both work full time. We have to ”bounce back” because the world doesn’t slow down for us. It begs the question, what if we didn’t HAVE to stretch ourselves in every possible direction? Is becoming a super-mom a better solution than asking the world to improve? “A rubberband girl, she!” the world responds, encouragingly. Keep pushing yourself, queen!

eeeeooowweeeeowww….