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There are so many firsts to raising kids, and parents are told to catch them all. But they don’t warn you about the lasts. The last baby onesie. The last time you tie their shoes. The last time they think you have every answer in the world.
Mom was the first to tell me her life was all about business. The business of the church, and then the business of their children. And then it all ended, and she hadn’t seen it coming. She spent decades putting her brilliant business mind to work for our family behind the scenes. Dad had the ideas, she would fine-tune them and pull them down a bit from the stratosphere. Then Dad would sell it. He was the pitchman who could sell anything. If my dad can make people believe in God, I always thought at the start of my career, he can surely make people believe in me.
In the South, there are so many secrets, and my parents were there to give people a safe place.
Ryan was my first hard crush. He tried so hard to sound tough, a voice like Marlon Brando but with this squeaky-clean face. He did that same thing he does in movies: He leans forward like you’re drawing him in, he lowers his chin, and then opens his eyes to look up at you. I don’t know what old movie he saw that move in, but it stuck. I was in love. Before anybody knew how hot Ryan Gosling was going to become, I had a vision.
She had these big beautiful eyes, brown like mine. I heard her talk and she was Southern, like me. I heard an “oh my goodness” come out of her and I knew she had to be a Baptist choir girl, too. We had such a similar look. Nobody else in the competition had looked like me, and here was this last-minute— “Hi, Britney,” said Matt, the casting director.
“Jessica, you have to know something,” she said. “You’re gonna have to face this again.” I whimpered. “No, I have a really strong feeling that you’re gonna see these girls again,” she said. “Somewhere down the road, you’re gonna cross paths again. So, you better get ready.”
Her mom KNEW
Near the end of summer, Buster wanted me to come back to New Jersey to record. The choir thing did not go over very well with the crowds, and I was really interested in doing solo stuff anyway. My mother wanted me to take a break and just focus on school for a bit. “Just be an eighth grader,” she said. “Try being a cheerleader.” Be a cheerleader, they said. It will be fun, they said.
The look I was going for was sexy but saved. Come hither but leave room for the Lord.
There were so few women in the offices, and I’d never felt so Southern, standing there with my long pink nails and hair so high to be nearer my God to thee.
The thing about falling in love with someone in a boyband is that you’re not alone.
So I was free to date and explore, like some Jane Goodall studying the mating habits of Hollywood’s celebrity bachelors. I would meet guys in clubs, or their people would call my people. Our shared fame would mean we couldn’t be seen together, or we’d fall into the sausage grinder of the tabloid fame machine. We rented cars or met on private planes, probably loaned or rented to impress me, who knows. It was intensely glamorous and all completely secret.
It didn’t make me cry, it made me mad. But he was breaking down in front of the world, and, again, I felt responsible. How many times are women made to feel responsible for the actions of men? I know now that I wasn’t, but back then, it felt like I needed to fix him.
Early on, he wrote a song about me, and he made it so plain that I thought, Oh, he does want me to be myself.
Comfortable???
John loved me when I was shining, and he drew strength and inspiration to write from that light. He would grill me about my life, asking me questions about the men I had been with and the choices I had made. When he tapped me dry, he looked at me like I was withholding something from him. He would tell me that my true self was so much greater than the person I was settling on being. Like there was some great woman inside of me waiting to come out, and I had to hurry up and find her because he wanted to love that woman, not me. He’d dump me, then come back saying he had discovered he loved me
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Tony had seen my dad out a lot for about a year and had asked to be introduced. I always told my dad no, that I wasn’t interested in athletes. “I’m a musician girl,” I said. I believed that I could only date people who could relate to me because they were in the business. Which I guess was my code for, “I like emotional torture and fixing dark people.”
Give a girl an insult, she’ll feel bad for a day, but teach her to hate her body, she’ll feel bad forever.
Finding peace with total quiet is possible, but I do still struggle with insomnia. All my fears and doubts do come once everyone is asleep and there is nobody to distract me. When thoughts come, I’ve learned that they’re okay. I can’t say I’ve made friends with them, but lying in bed I can at least shake hands with them now. Like, “Okay, I see you. I’m aware of you, and now you be aware of me. Good night.”
