"Next to Abnormal," by Anabel Burns

Anabel is a senior student at Marian University, studying secondary education and English. This piece was written as an emotional exorcism.

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A true writer, the blood under my skin runs frigidly hot, twisting and turning and begging to spill onto the page; stain it with significance. Unique, but universal. A far and wide thought that only I can narrow.

But as hard as I churn, brain to blood to wrist, it has already been said best.

“Now I’m strolling right beside her as the black hole opens wide / Mine is just a slower suicide.”

____

The musical “Next to Normal” first premiered off-Broadway in 2008. It was the result of a collaboration between lyricist Brian Yorkey and musical composer Tom Kitt. In April of 2009, the show moved to Broadway, opening largely to critical acclaim.

The story follows Diana Goodman, a typical suburban wife and mother with bipolar disorder, and a sixteen-year history of medical treatment. The plot hinges on Diana, and how her illness injures not only herself, but her whole family. When Diana falters, they all slip through

the cracks of their carefully constructed normality.

A 2009 New York Times review of the show asserts that the musical, “asks you, with operatic force, to discover the liberation in knowing where it hurts.” Through the medium of song and dance, costumes and choreography, and suspended disbelief, Kitt and Yorkey ask their

audience to believe wholeheartedly in the reality of the story. To look beyond the stage lights and the suburban home set to a hurt so true and vast it cannot be confined to the four walls of the theatre.

___

The exact age at which I discovered the cast recording of “Next to Normal” is too fuzzy to place exactly in time, but I know I was rooted firmly in adolescence.

I loved the broken characters the most. The ones with jagged edges. The ones that hurt to hold on to.

And none hurt more than Diana Goodman, scripted to unravel on the stage night after night.

I used to peer out of rainy car windows and imagine myself performing Diana’s cynical number, “You Don’t Know”.

“Do you know, do you know what it’s like to die alive?”

It was catharsis.

But Diana isn’t the only character in the show. There are other players on the stage—a family, a husband and kids. The hurt is contagious.

Of course, I knew that. But now, I must know it.

____

“I’ve Been” is Dan’s—Diana’s husband—solo number.

In the 2024 London revival Dan is depicted cleaning his wife’s blood from the kitchen floor as he performs the song. The first, and then the second towel is saturated completely through. Fluorescent stage blood is streaking the floor, on the cabinets, on his hands.

I think of my great uncle, a Marine who was on the ground in Nagasaki just days after the bomb was dropped. Later he lived in Shelbyville, operated a roofing business.

My granddad and his younger brother had to clean the brain matter from the bedroom walls afterwards, so my great uncle’s widow didn’t have to do it.

But someone has to do it. I just never want it to be me.

“And whenever she goes flying / I keep my feet right on the ground.”

____

I drive to the hospital. Hands ten and two but slipping, slipping. I dig my fingers into the wheel, seeking tactile stimulation, something that won’t crumble under pressure. The crisscross stitching imprints itself into the pads of my fingers.

It’s dark out, maybe 5 or 6 in the morning. I’m not exactly sure. There wasn’t enough time to look at a clock, hardly enough time to make the drive.

I keep my mind one mile ahead, my body the only thing in the driver’s seat. I’m not sure how I’m doing it. It isn’t autopilot.

I realize that I do not know how to activate the child locks on the doors. I don’t have a child, but I have the worry that you’ll spill out onto the cold and dark highway; spill out when all I’ve ever wanted was to be sturdy enough to contain all your abnormalities. But I’m cracking

fast; I’m not strong or sturdy or normal enough for you.

I think I’d really like to trade places with you. Swap our roles.

The white flag is waving—my foot on the gas, my hands on the wheel.

“Oh now I need a lift / and there's no one around.”

___

We’re on the road, can’t be more than three miles away.

“I need to get out. I’m getting out,” you wheeze.

She crawls over the center console and into the backseat with you, leaving me alone to follow the road. You start flailing and kicking and she’s yelling, “pull over.”

I hit the curb in some empty bank parking lot. Your body has calmed some and now all I can hear is rhythmic pleading. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry, Momma. I’m so sorry.”

Rapid oscillations of cationic grays and aggressive, violent outbursts and my cup is about to run over or crack.

In the darkness, I see the fluorescent red glow of EMERGENCY in the distance like it is salvation. I can’t crack yet.

I reverse, make a right. I drive to the hospital.

___

Dan Goodman’s story resolves with him agreeing to try therapy. It’s a happy ending, but it’s also admittance of defeat. He couldn’t be strong or sturdy or normal enough to change Diana. Perhaps just the opposite.

We leave the hospital without you, white flag hoisted. I drive us to a Lincoln Square because she and I agree that home feels wrong. In the car, she sobs, “What’s wrong with him?”

It doesn’t resolve.

“And every day this act we act gets more and more absurd.”

___

A true writer, I needed to expel the memory through a purging of imagery and metaphors. There is a desire to make it look pretty, at least on the page. Maybe that, at least, will earn me something more than just the haunting recollection. A house decorated for Christmas, with the

knives and pills stashed away.

I never asked to relate to Dan; I never wanted to be the one who has to do it—to be the “normal” that misery can reside next to. To chart a path to liberation when the way ahead is blocked by a river of hurt. I could drown, too.

What a Sisyphean task it is to construct a corner of the world happy enough that they’ll want to stay in it. The boulder crush comes in shades of red—blood-soaked towels and emergency room signs.

I know myself by comparison—I despise the observation.

Brian Yorkey and Tom Kitt already said it all best. All that’s left for me to do is act it out, scene by scene until it resolves, or until I have something better to say.

I’ll lie, and cheat, and drive, and churn, and clean, and hurt, and stand shoulder to shoulder with all your abnormalities at curtain call, so long as it means I get to keep you. It isn’t the role I wanted, but damn, I’ll play it til my last.

I take my bow.

Lyrics: Tom Kitt & Brian Yorkey, 2008, “Next To Normal”