A Cry For Years
It’s interesting to read, and speak aloud, the story I wrote nearly five years ago about locking myself in a public bathroom in Estonia, sitting on a closed toilet lid, and crying for years of loss.
Parts of me are different now. I’ve internally changed. But I’ve chosen to freeze that version of myself in time—presenting it to you as it was written when the story was still raw.
I think the theme of this piece can be summed up in one line below:
“I had only been taught to dream; no one ever trained me how to say goodbye.”
What happens when we spend our whole life chasing a dream that never becomes reality? Can we learn to lay it in a casket, don a black dress and pantyhose, and let it die? How do we say goodbye?
You can listen to, watch or read the death of my dream. In the video version of my reading below, I sing. I cry. It’s hard to speak out the memory of something I once loved; to remember what it feels like to mourn for lost years.
This is the third and final chapter I will share from my unpublished book: When Songs Disappear. You can read chapter one or chapter two, but neither is necessary to understand the story below.
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Much love,
Olivia
It was 6 a.m. and a horde of cameras surrounded the area, fighting for footage of each contestant boarding the bus to the theater round of Estonia’s version of “American Idol.” The cockiest contestants believed this would be the final time they remained unrecognizable. Soon fans would point their direction when spotted buying bananas at the supermarket or when driving a Range Rover while a tram rattled by—packed to the gills with commuters.
I walked past the cameras, heaved my suitcase into the belly of the tour bus, and found a seat. I pulled out my headphones and plopped my purse in the seat next to me—a clear sign I needed to sit alone. The final hour before the competition was reserved for serious preparation. I listened to songs and calcified all the Estonian lyrics into my psyche.
It was an hour’s drive—past the medieval stone buildings of Old Town, by the Soviet-built apartments on the outskirts of Tallinn, through long roads bordered by evergreen forests. We arrived at one of Estonia’s oldest and most well-known spa hotels, pulled our suitcases off the bus and were told to immediately prepare for the competition.
The public bathrooms overflowed with young women making last minute touch-ups to red lips and stray hairs. The television crew transformed one corner of the hotel into a TV sound stage. The celebrity judges were already seated beneath the lights and the host, large microphone in hand, began to interview the nervous seventy-five remaining contestants.
His blue eyes distracted me from the layer of makeup that cracked when he smiled. “So, you’re the oldest person in this competition. How do you think that helps you?”
I hoped the choice of wearing my hair in a sleek bun helped my green eyes shine in the camera’s light. “Well, when I was younger, I didn’t really know what I wanted from life. I wasn’t confident in who I was. Now that I’m 37, I feel like I’ve grown into the person I’m meant to be. And if I don’t win, it’s not the end-of-the-world for me. I have a whole other life to return to. So, that gives me peace.”
He went on to interview the musical theater actress with a cute button nose, brown eyes and size two physique. The guy with the guitar serenaded the camera with love songs hoping to already make the teenage girls at home swoon.
We were corralled into a corner and asked to shout, “I am the next superstar,” in Estonian; hands waving, bouncing with excitement. This advertisement soon ran on Estonia’s main TV channel. It greeted people after a long day of work, when they sat on their couches to enjoy an open-faced sandwich of fish and boiled eggs while watching mindless televison.
The theater round was about to begin. Contestants gathered in one large lobby and divided into performance groups. The host, now wearing a grey shiny suit, gave us our final pep talk. We were the top 75 singers in the nation. It didn’t matter what the celebrity judges—the crazy-haired pianist, tattooed rock star or child prodigy—had to say about our talent. We should be proud. It was time to believe the words we’d just shouted for the entire nation—we are the next superstars.
The host called the first group to appear on an elevated stage in front of the judges; even bigger cameras and fancier lights pivoting around them. I sat in the lobby for hours, waiting for my chance to sing. I made small talk with some of the contestants who thought I was interesting—a native English-speaker, an old American with a dream of performing she could not let go. Some had gotten to this same round in previous years and were then sent home. They shared insider information—a kind way of making sure I felt a part of the seventy-five.
As soon as my group was called, the singer’s curse tightened its arms around my throat to cut off my breath. It climbed my back and sat on my shoulders for a front row seat to my possible demise. I walked past the producers and on to the stage, blinded by the lights.
My breath became shallow. My pulse raced near my vocal cords. Next to me stood a young singer wearing all black, ripped shorts in cold February, fishnet tights, ratty hair dyed jet black, and a pair of Doc Martin boots that I wore when I was also young in the 1990s. She sang with a raspy edge that somehow never rested on a precise pitch or melody. Her dark purple lipstick and black cat eyes made her punk rock persona soar.
She was the only performer from my group that I remember because she sang after me. I utilized every one of the other performer’s minutes to put into practice everything my $48,000 degree in vocal performance taught me. I rooted my breath in the diaphragm, began to control the frequency of my inhales and exhales while my pulse continued to sprint inside my chest. Then it was my turn.
Have you ever fed a lover with just your hands?
Closed your eyes and trusted, just trusted
Have you ever thrown a fist full of glitter in the air?
Have you ever looked fear in the face
And said I just don't care?
At this point I found the judge with the tattoos and sea blue eyes and sang to him. I wanted to prove that I was not afraid to sing to any audience, into any camera lens staring me down, or to some handsome celebrity who prefers women half his age.
There you are, sitting in the garden
Clutching my coffee,
Calling me sugar
You called me sugar
Have you ever wished for an endless night?
Lassoed the moon and the stars and pulled that rope tight
Have you ever held your breath and asked yourself
Will it ever get better than tonight?
Tonight
{“Glitter in the Air” by Pink}
No feedback was given. We were asked to leave the stage as the judges scribbled notes, whispered opinions. A make-up artist brushed their noses with powder and attempted to tame the old curmudgeon’s threads of hair. The producers prepared for another set of finalists to enter.
I thought I was one of the better singers in my group, but was that enough? Did I have too much to overcome? My age? My nationality? My level of Estonian language fluency? My curves revealed in high-waisted pants?
Hours more passed as the final groups performed and the judges deliberated to cut the number of finalists in half. The chosen would stay at the hotel, working all night, to put together a group performance for the next morning. I believed that I had to be in the top thirty-five and the kind Estonians, who heard me perform, assured me I had a good shot.
Once the judges made their final choice, the host called us back into the theater in groups of ten. Each group entered and exited divided—some with smiles so big their lips could not contain them. Others looked at the floor while shaking their heads back and forth.
When my group was called, I entered through the doors with confidence. The judges called four names and had them step forward, and I stood with six people in the back line. The kind female judge looked at us. “Back row, you’re going home. Front row, congratulations, you advance to the next round!”
I was in the back, and the punk rocker with fishnet tights and an inability to stay in tune, stood proudly in front of me. Perhaps I should have asked my sister to pull my old Doc Marten’s out of storage in America and overnight them to Tallinn.
After all those years of performing in front of critical professors, I should have been able to control my pulse. Did my vibrato escape its pop music cage and remember its years of training—going into full opera mode?
Who was I kidding?
I should have never buried the dream when I was still young enough to live it.
The girls I befriended shook their heads in disbelief and sent me to collect my small suitcase with a short hug. Being Estonian, they successfully hid their excitement about the awarding of a hotel key card—their ticket to the next day’s competition and a spa room for the night.
I found a public handicapped bathroom in the lobby; hoping for a moment to compose myself before boarding the bus back to Tallinn. I sat down on the cold, closed lid of the toilet. My hands grabbed the metal railing meant to save someone from falling and captured my collapse instead.
When I was a baby and those long drives around Kansas City did not rock me to sleep, I became inconsolable. My wails turned into screams, and screams transformed into an infant form of hyperventilation—so worked up that I could no longer breathe. My small mouth gulped for air between sobs; clenching my fists while fighting for breaths. My habit of nearly suffocating each time I became upset continued through the first five years of my life. I thought I had left that childishness behind. But it waltzed back into that spa hotel bathroom and was determined to once again make my acquaintance.
That day I cried for years.
Hours before I proudly proclaimed to the cameras that this contest meant nothing to me. I was thirty-seven years old and had a real life to return home to. Now I sat on the edge of a toilet seat, stifling sobs and fighting for every breath. My fingers strangled the handicap rails. I had been holding back the torrent for too long.
All the tears I never cried when I was 24 and left for Armenia. All the disbelief I accumulated while studying opera that convinced me that dreams don’t come true. I sobbed for the decade I thought I needed to eradicate singing from my life in order to serve people overseas. I believed that God had asked me to follow the example of His Son, and to “die to myself” so others could find life. Did He ever really require my voice to be silenced or had I forgotten the goodness of God and too easily surrendered?
I cried because it was the last breath of a dream—one I made a final attempt to revive from the dead. When I saw a middle-aged woman staring back from the bathroom mirror, humiliation enveloped me. My skin was beet red, mascara smeared down my cheeks, large eyes accentuated by my hair pulled back. They were puffy from extracting more than they could give.
The tour bus and cameras awaited the departure of the rejected. I knew Estonians, many trained to never show deep emotion in public, would not give the cameras the necessary drama required for any reality show. But the American locked inside the handicapped bathroom, face bloated from tears, could provide all the footage of rejection they’d ever need.
I called Nick from the bathroom prison. My voice echoed off the tiled walls. I hoped that my English was too quickly paced and muffled for any Estonian eavesdropper to comprehend. “Liv, you have a powerful voice. They know you have a powerful voice. This is not about your talent. They’re looking for someone they can give a record deal to and make a lot of money off of.”
I grabbed the sink’s handle and turned it to its max—the rush of water absorbed the sounds I can’t help but make when my heart breaks.
“That will be a young Estonian they can market. You don’t fit into what they need, Liv.” I listened between gulps of air. “You’re wonderful. Just come home.”
I couldn’t argue back. The final pursuit of this dream had extracted every ounce of fight from me. My dream of being a singer was dead at last. It was time to lay it in a coffin, don a black dress and pantyhose, and grieve.
But I had only been taught to dream; no one ever trained me how to say goodbye.
I hung up and patted my cheeks and eyes with cheap paper towels soaked in water. I was in a spa and the second floor was inundated with well-trained cosmetologists who could have covered up proof of my sorrow with layers of calming cream. But this was something I needed to do alone. I pulled out my make-up bag, reapplied mascara, and similar to the show’s celebrities, caked on enough powder to hide any blotchy imperfection.
I left the bathroom; cameras filmed my path to the bus. A suitcase dragged behind me; the last of its good wheels cracked and broken. The TV network’s bus, filled with thirty-four rejected Estonian singers plus one over-aged American, turned toward home as the cameras chased after us.
The bus driver drove past Estonian forests, back through the Soviet apartments that all look the same—ten-story high rectangular buildings painted with grey plaster, carved into with cheap windows and tiny balconies. I saw the steeple of the oldest Lutheran church, covered in green copper, piercing the sky over Old Town.
Every kilometer we drove was accompanied by tears that made riverbeds along my powdered cheeks. I was alone. Everyone else peered out the windows dry and emotionless. The bus parked near the shopping center just one block from my home. No cameras this time. We’d proven no longer worthy of their bright flashes and attention.
What I said in my interview was right. I was returning to something—hungry kids and a husband, with his own dream waiting, at home. I dragged my suitcase into that favorite Italian restaurant. This time, there was no chance of seeing the famous celebrity judge, in sweats, picking up some pasta for a night at home. I knew she was still at the hotel, lounging in a sauna after a long day of deliberation and multiple applications of mascara and blush. It was just me. I still had my voice; the grace of God; my family.
That had to be enough.
But, for me, it wasn’t.
In my next post, I will share how I learned to say goodbye to a dream and rise from failure. And, ultimately, we learn that we always have enough—even when we think we need more.
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