#whiteGirlProblems

 I've been taking singing lessons because I have wished I could sing since I was a teenager, and, well, what the fuck was stopping me?

Crippling self-doubt and an ugly voice, you say? OK, yes. 

BUT! I want to be able to sing, so I'm taking lessons, and I am practicing with faith (yeech) that I will eventually be able to sing in such a way that the kids' musical friends don't mock me when I do karaoke with Maggie when she's 21. (This is my stated goal.)

So I was BEYOND excited when my voice teacher suggested that we work an Adele song because she thinks it will suit my voice. I can learn to sing like Adele?!?!?! OMG, squeeeeeeeeeee!!!!! 

Coincidentally, the Friday after she said that, the new Adele album dropped, so guess what I did first thing Friday morning!

...

*sigh*

...

I don't like it.

I don't like half of what Adele is doing with her amazing voice. I know from singing lessons that that whole breath-y Ariana Grande thing is actually a singing flex because it takes a SHIT TON of air to make your voice sound like that. You have to waste a lot of air, so it's exceptionally hard to do. I still don't like it aesthetically. It's not "sexy." It's doesn't sound cool. It sounds weak and wishy-washy.

But what I really, really hate are the lyrics. They are "mature." And not in the fun, dirty, immature way that I like. They are based in Adele "doing the work" in therapy before, during, and after her divorce. 

Ugh.

I am so disgusted by the phrase "doing the work" with respect to therapy, as if you're doing the public a service. People generally don't deserve congratulations for doing things for themselves, which is what therapy is. You're spending time and money on yourself. OK. And you also bought a couture track suit. ...nerrrr... 

She got everything she could ever need in life in her early 20s, and so much more than most people ever get. All her dreams came true. And she's not happy. So in consequence, she wrote a whole album of excuses for the fact that she has been selfish and immature, with a dash of exploiting her son's reaction to her divorce? No thank you.

And after I had my negative reaction, I read that she had said she wasn't making the album for 14 year old girls, but for women in their 30s and 40s. Um. No. Not this woman in her 40s. 

I still deeply relate to #whiteGirlProblems, but I cannot related to her #richWhiteLadyProblems.