Cady Groves, A Retrospective, Part V: Christmas Edition

The serendipity of all this sometimes shocks even me.

Alright… well… to begin with, perhaps I wasn’t accurate when I said that I didn’t care about Cady anymore. I mean, I think I said that, earlier, on here. Like, a couple weeks ago. I think it was after that dreadful MRI, or something. Or during that horrible emotional low where I was… just determined to off myself, as quickly as possible. You know, because of the withdrawals.

Yeah, the withdrawals. That was why.

Right.

So… well… back to Cady. And this time, let’s talk Christmas.

So… I still care I guess about her. And I still kinda wish she was still here. And I still kinda wish that maybe things were different, overall. And maybe… I’m still learning, here. About everything; life, love, and society; and why we are what we are, and why we do the things we do, and how.

So… Cady. Alright; let’s talk Crying Game.

—————————————–

Woke up to snow, it’s Christmas again
But you’re still not home, got thrown in the pen
And I’m six years old sitting here thinking “Why am I always alone?”

So I watch my momma from the back of the van
She drove along, and having seven kids
Must have been hard, but daddy couldn’t stay out of the bar

It’s a crying game, seeing him in prison on Christmas day
Twenty years later still such a shame to have a broken heart at such a young age

Now it’s all the same, it’s a crying game

I missed the call and woke to find my brother was gone
That’s when I lost my mind at eighteen years old
Wondering how life could be so cold

But we came together, like never before
All my brothers and sisters kept momma at shore til we lost another
It’s hard to know just what to think no more

It’s a crying game, to have to put my brothers in their graves
Life ain’t perfect, but it’s such a shame
They left behind the stories that they never made

Now it’s all the same, it’s a crying game

Living and loving gets me through the pain
Don’t take for granted a soul or a day
Anywhere I’m going it’s crazy to think
That there’s a million other people out there playing
Crying game
There’s no winning and no one to blame
Life is fragile and can slip away and let me tell you when it does, it’s such a shame

But it’s all the same, it’s a crying game

—————————————–

For those not in her fandom (most if not all of you), this song was Cady’s magnum opus. Personally, I like this song but it is not my favorite of hers, but this one is her most critically acclaimed work. It’s I guess the important one, as far as her public face is concerned.

So… what do I make of this, then?

Well…

Let’s look at her Facebook, first, and her last video, there.

I talked about serendipity up above. It’s almost like… Crying Game kinda… finishes her… purpose? Or something?

IDK. I guess I’m just wondering why Crying Game, which seems to almost foreshadow her own demise, I guess to herself, and me, and her fans, and… everyone, starts off with a reference to Christmas day, and the videos on her Facebook feed end on a Christmas Eve. It seems kinda… eerie. And darkly poetic, I guess. And it is, it really is. And I wonder if anyone else noticed this; probably not. This is a kind of detail that I think only a necromancer would find.

So, then, we come to me, and how I fit in to all this. Well, I have kinda a love / hate relationship with Christmas. I love it, because it’s my favorite holiday, but I hate it, too, because it’s like… I feel sometimes like it’s not for me.

I don’t have the big family that others have. That is why I created a new one out of ghosts. All my girlfriends… that is why they’re here. To be my surrogate family, you know, as Ashley Benson pointed out, way back then. It’s like, I’ve always wanted a bigger family, and I’ve always wanted the small family I have to like me and respect me wayyyy more than they do. Hence, my multitude of girlfriends / apparitions.

So… Cady, I’m sure, picked up on this. And reading the above I think she thought along similar lines with her own family.

Similar, but not the same, of course. It’s like… I needed her, in the way that she needed me. I needed her to just… be there, for me, and she needed the same from me. Like, I would be the one that wouldn’t leave, or hurt her, or surprise her, somehow. I would be her rock, her support.

Her laments above were thoughts that she felt free to express I think because she knew at least then that I could be the one to plug the holes in her life. She thought I think that I could take the place of her dead siblings, of her father that never loved her… and maybe even of herself, since she couldn’t fully love herself, either.

Like… the Crying Game she was playing was this: How can I get this guy to stick around and fill the gaps in my life, with his presence, and his love? To make me complete, and happy? I will tell him my life’s sob story, through songs, and tweets, and instagram pictures, and… everything. Give him me, make him know me, and given his nature and what he wants, he will then protect me. He will love me, because of this song. And I in turn would respond and reel her in, and make her a part of the new family that I was making comprised of people, like her, that desperately needed someone like me. Because I needed them.

That was the “Game” she and I were playing. And it was, truly, like a game. Back and forth we went, through the years, each one of us taking our turn. Like: imagine a softball game. My girlfriends would line up, one by one, and they would each take a turn at bat. As the pitcher, I would then toss the ball at each one of them, individually, in an attempt to get them to do what I wanted them to do. When it was her turn at bat, I would pitch, and Cady would respond with… IDK, a song, or something. And then I’d lob a few more at her, and then she would leave, and her turn would come up again, later, and then the cycle would repeat itself.

So… yeah.

And the “Crying” part is about how we were all fucking miserable without each other. Without my girlfriends, I would have been dead years ago. And without me, so would a few of them, I’m sure. And at least they would all have been worse off. A lot I think would have been desperately unhappy. Lonely, dysfunctional, ungrounded. You know, like how Hollywood chicks were before I showed up. You remember, right? I mean, look at them then, and look at them now. I’m the difference. Now, they’re actually happy, lol.

So… back to Christmas… it’s like… there’s a reason I’m so adamant that I get Christmas presents from my girlfriends. It’s because it’s like… we’re a family, right? And that’s what families do.

And like… the serendipity that I noticed above. It’s almost like, in a perverse way, she was giving herself to me, through all of this. Like, the Christmas present that I needed from my new family… was her. Kinda… am I right in this? Or am I taking this too far?

I mean… this sounds rude to even say, I know. But… based on the things she has told me, after her death… no matter the circumstance, this is what she wants me to think like.

I’ve talked about this before, but maybe she knew she was going to die young, and probably from something self-inflicted. I mean, reading her lyrics… it’s like… how could you NOT think that, really? She was obsessed with dying young, and suicide, if you read between the lines. Cue her demo song If I Die Young, lol. And also… When I Die. And, like, everything else, lol.

It’s like… she just kinda wanted someone to stay with her, and love her, forever, and she felt she couldn’t get that when she was alive, and I was kinda looking for juuuuust that kind of permanence from a ghost given my own abilities, and the stars aligned, and… it just kinda… happened? Or something.

I don’t know. This stuff is weird, and unique. I mean it’s beautiful, but… difficult.

Um…

So… Christmas. It’s coming up, isn’t it? Yeah… I… need to think I guess more about that.

Well… for now, goodbye and good night.

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