I thought I was over Celine. When my best friend told me in March that Celine will be in a residency in Paris in autumn, I was between two Vipassana courses and was very much uninterested to go to a concert. Otherwise, I was very happy for the news as I inadvertantly was aware of what Celine has been through the past years and that she desired very much to be back on stage.
It isn’t the first time, I turned down seeing her in concert. Last time my friends went to see her in concert, I chose to go visit a friend in Germany. I do not regret it. It marked a change in priorities for me that I wasn’t aware of at the time, nor would I understand where it would lead. I have already seen Celine in concert four times, so it felt like enough. However, I’m not a fan of even numbers, but even so, my priorities now are way away from going to concerts. Or at least, that’s how it felt in March. Frankly, every Vipassana course comes with major changes. I never know exactly what I might decide next.
I forgot about this for a while. I wasn’t expecting it to be something important beyond Celine’s fandom. I definitely didn’t expect much positive media coverge, especially after seeing the tabloid covers in April when I was in Swiss which showed Celine in distress and had alarming titles about how bad she is doing. I didn’t worry, but neither did I think the media would make thing easy for Celine’s comeback.
Obviously, her team thought of this because they orchestrated a major positive media coverage which outshines by far, at least in my bubble, any miserable being offering empty criticism just to feel better about their own suffering. Clearly, she also delivered, but I wasn’t worried about that. She wouldn’t have decided to be back on stage if she couldn’t handle it. There is literally nothing which could have forced her to do something right now, or no one*.
While I am beyond happy for Celine, and I am also enjoying the positive feedback for the most part, I also find all this coverege problematic.
First of all, she has a debilitating disease. She didn’t overcome it. She lives with it and has adjusted so as to be able to do what she wants, but as she also has stated she has to sacrifice a lot to be able to be on stage and have the energy we see. It’s her choice and she does all this in full awarness, so it is fine, but many people praise this as an ideal or a must. People with disabilities or chronic diseases do not need to sacrifice every other pleasure in life or anything else they might want to do or could ensure their well being in order to do a job, irrespectively if it’s their dream job or not.
Celine is praised for her courage, determination and resiliance, which she has and is amazing for, but what does this mean exactly?
She has an incredible social support system: lots of family and friends. She was never once alone in this. There are many people to support her, so that no one ever had to be there for her so much that it would burn them out. Supporting someone through cronic pain, a disability or mental struggle is incredibly hard and wears out the person having to support. Which is why I am forever and extremly gratefull to the support my best friend gave me three years ago. Luckly, it was necessary only for a few months, but it still feels like a lot. Can’t imagine years on end like this. It is not even a question of love or care from a certain point on, a burnt out support person is disabled themselves.
Celine is fucking rich. Most of us, if we can’t work we also become a financial burden on others. She was probably making money while she wasn’t able to get out of bed. These leads to a very important point, access to medical care. She has access to medical care most of us can’t even consider. And despite this access, she was misdiagnosed for 17 long years …because she is a woman.
This is something that should be spoken of more. Not by her. She doesn’t need the stress. But one of her misdiagnosis was perimenopausal hysteria. Hysteria is a made up diagnosis, invented by men to control women, back when they thought the uterus was traveling though the female body. Perimenopause it is also a term invented around that time as diagnosis for women not willing to put up with their husbands abuses anymore. So, her condition wasn’t taken seriously by doctors, irrespsctive if they were male or female, as the system is still unfortunately build unfarely towards women whose bodies aren’t studied enough to be able to offer correct care.
Autoimmune diseases are tricky as they seem to start out of nowhere. The trigger can be anything or it can build up over time. Symptoms are also quite varied. Once symptoms start, the progression can be thunder fast and there is very little you can do, or slow. Obviously, Celine had a slow progression of the disease. This also means that even though treatment started late, the body was still more enclined to respond to it than if the disease had a fast progression.
This slow progression also means that she never had to undergo the pain we saw in her documentary. The disease could have easily been prevented from progressing this much if the doctors would have treated her like a man.
So yeah, Celine is amazing, she has always been. There was no need for this pain to prove anything.
While the praise of Celine is well deserved, not considering her context puts unecessary pressure of other people who are stuggling for whatever reason. A friend shared a meme with me saying: “If Celine can sing again, I can do anything”. Yes, with care for my organism and within the context that I am in right now.
Anyone is doing all they can in any moment. The impression that it isn’t enough comes from (internalized) pressure from an unemphatetic society. Every life is worthy. That is to say Celine’s life isn’t worth more than any other. You can be mad about this statement, I’m sure she would agree.
*no one, because the only person who could have forced her to do anything is dead. I am certain that if she wasn’t a widow, she would have been divorced now.
The joy of creating 