The New Year is the time many of us take stock of our lives. This week, PGN profiles someone who took the concept to a whole new level. Just over one year ago, Bridget O’Loughlin challenged herself to write a story every single day for 365 days. Her funny and touching stories take us from the tragic event that started her journey to her triumphant 365th day.
PGN: So Ms. O’Loughlin, tell me little about yourself. BOL: I just turned 40 and I was born in Bethlehem.
PGN: Appropriate for this time of year! BOL: Isn’t it? I’ve often said that I was the second coming. But I’m from Bethlehem, Pa., so it’s not quite the same. I grew up in the suburbs of Philly, and I’ve lived in Center City since I was 17.
PGN: Any other kids in the fam? BOL: I have a younger brother, Pat. He’s awesome. He’s an artist and he helped me a lot with this project. I don’t think I could have done it without him.
PGN: And what did the folks do? BOL: My mom is happily retired from nursing and I have no idea what my dad does. I haven’t talked to him in 16 years.
PGN: Where did you and Pat get your creative side? BOL: I think from a fucked-up childhood. I believe that’s where most creative types come from. It’s a good outlet for a life with a lot of pain. You can either wallow in it or find a way to channel it. My mom’s funny and Pat and I are funny, but as far as the creative arts are concerned, I think we just figured it out on our own.
PGN: And how does he express his creative side? BOL: He’s a fine artist — photography, painting, sketching, anything along those lines.
PGN: So what was the project? BOL: It started Dec. 14, 2010, and I decided to write a story a day for 365 days. I just finished the last one on the 14th of this month.
PGN: Your blog is called “My Pants Won’t Stay Up.” Sounds naughty. BOL: It does, but no! About eight years ago I went through a cancer scare with my lady parts … I had two tumors (that I named) and I lost a lot of weight, mostly from being stressed about it. When I started writing the blog, it was also after a period of stress that caused me to lose weight again, hence the pants not staying up.
PGN: And what prompted the project? BOL: I fell apart. At the end of October 2010 I tried to commit suicide. Three days later I got into therapy, though I’d always been resistant to try it. And I have a degree in psychology! I’m that guy, the one who’s always like, “No, I got this. I don’t need any help.” The therapist recommended that I start writing in a journal but I found that writing privately, I was just wallowing a lot. I figured that if I did it on a grander, more public scale, it would make me move out of that mind frame and lighten up a little. I mean some of the stories are pretty serious, but even then I tried to keep my sense of humor. It also started as a way to reach out to the person who had left and kind of wrecked me, but it soon grew into something else. At first it seemed insurmountable, because it took me two to three hours a day to write something and it was hard to always fit that in with life and my day job.
PGN: And what do you do? BOL: I’m a parole officer. I still haven’t quite figured out what I want to be when I grow up. But I feel I can now say I’m a writer, which before I wouldn’t have been able to say or believe.
PGN: What’s a funny parole-officer story? BOL: Oh God. Well, the funny ones usually revolve around drug tests. I had a guy test positive for weed and he kept denying, as they all do, that he had done anything. I said, “I didn’t ask you if you’d done drugs, because we know that for a fact, I asked for the circumstances.” He concentrated and racked his brain for the memory of what could have happened and finally asked, “Do you know the 76ers?” and I thought, this is going to be a good one. He said, “Well, a friend of mine won box seats for the game and they gave him a free buffet. I remember they had a hoagie spread and you know how hoagies have oregano on them? Well, I think someone sprinkled weed on them instead of the oregano. They look alike you know. That’s what must have happened.” I told him, “Wow, you get points for creativity. You’re not getting locked up today, not because of the story, but because you need treatment, but that was fun.”
PGN: Where did you go to school? BOL: I got my degree from Temple. I majored in psychology and minored in women’s studies.
PGN: Do you apply your psychology background as a parole officer? BOL: All day, every day. The law-enforcement part comes first, but in the end, it’s dealing with people who have problems. I’m not adverse to locking people up — and I do — but I’d rather talk to people and try to help them.
PGN: What’s the worst job you ever had? BOL: Cleaning toilets for four years to get through college. Not just toilets — I worked for a cleaning company — but they were the worst. And kitchens, people go nuts, especially if they know a cleaning crew is coming: They just lose their shit and trash the place.
PGN: Favorite job? BOL: I love music and in high school my friends and I would go down to Tower Theatre and wait for musicians to arrive to do sound checks. We got to see a lot of our favorite artists that way. I hung out there so often that the head of security eventually offered me a job. I worked the Tower Theatre, the Mann Music Center, the Spectrum, etc., and got to meet people like Annie Lennox, who is a hero, and the B-52s, 10,000 Maniacs, Crowded House, you name it. It was awesome. Music has always been an escape for me.
PGN: You mentioned a tough childhood. Can you talk about it? BOL: It’s funny — I was always the stoic one who tried to deal with everything on my own. I was very private, a master deflector, I never let people really get to know the real me. If you asked someone, they would have told you I was a wisecracking tough gal. But this project has made me comfortable enough to talk about my childhood and about myself. I’m alive because of this project. I hope it inspires other people to try something different to help them with their struggles.
PGN: I’m sure it helps people to know they’re not alone — that someone else might be going through something similar. BOL: Yeah, I put a lot of shit in my writing that was really personal, because I wasn’t afraid anymore. There was a lot of physical and mental abuse that both my brother and I suffered at the hands of our father. Then a divorce and a mother who couldn’t be there because she was trying to work to support two small kids on her own. We tried to handle it ourselves, but at 8, it’s hard to know what to do with that stuff. You internalize it and assume that you must deserve the bad things that happen to you. I lived a life of fear and destruction for a long time, not feeling worthy of anything good because of my childhood.
PGN: Did you take on the parent role? BOL: No and that’s one of the things I felt guilty about, that I didn’t protect my brother who was five years younger. I was too busy trying to survive myself.
PGN: Which story seems to have touched people the most? BOL: I think the one where I celebrated the one-year anniversary of my suicide attempt, which was Oct. 24. I told the whole story of what happened instead of glossing over it like I might have done in the past. I had people from Africa and the U.K. and all over the States write to me and say that the story touched them. People that I never would have otherwise had contact with. And I got a lot of responses from my last entry, where I challenged people to get going and do something. Not to defeat themselves or cave in to excuses. I spent two to three hours a day writing, which in the course of a year came out to about 42 days. Most people would look at that and say, I just don’t have the time. But if you really want it, you make the time. And I feel like I made myself into a writer by practicing every day, which can be applied to anything. In the beginning, my first entries were just mediocre and if I’d quit then I never would have become the writer I am now. That’s something I hope people take away from reading my posts.
PGN: You have an interesting non-written twist to each post. BOL: Yeah, at the end of each post I have a link to a song that expresses the message of the post or that inspired me to write it. Sometimes that’s what takes so long — finding the right song. Music is life to me and I have thousands of songs in my head, but sometimes I want to research to find just the right one.
PGN: What was your favorite post? BOL: In the process of writing the pieces, I’ve gotten a lot closer to my mother and brother. It’s allowed all of us to open up to each other more. There was one called “Mother Knows Best.” In it I write about a time where I was talking to my mother and she told me about some irresponsible shit she’d done in her mid-30s. Including putting a bid on a trailer when we were kids. She was relieved when her bid lost because, as is the case with trailer communities, they turn the water off from November until March. She hadn’t thought that part through. It made me realize that she didn’t have it all together in her 30s and that I didn’t have to either. That you don’t have a certain time for — I don’t like to say starting over — but for writing a new ending for yourself. You don’t have to wait to start on a Monday or Jan. 1: You can change your path at any time.
PGN: When did you come out? BOL: Well, I’ve had a girlfriend since I was 15. I didn’t have a name for it and we kept it a secret because we knew it wasn’t “right,” but we were together for three years. When I lived on campus at Temple, I got a job at Giovanni’s Room even though I was still trying to have a foot in the “normal” world by saying that I was bisexual, even though I never did anything with men. That lasted about five minutes. You look back and realize that you were always gay.
PGN: What was one of your signs looking back? BOL: I was into ’80s television. I love a brunette with a gravelly voice, so I had a huge crush on Kate Jackson from “Charlie’s Angels”! I had a picture of her on my wall next to my bed that I would make out with before I went to bed. The ink on the picture around her mouth was all worn away from me slobbering all over it! Looking back, I should have also been arrested for stalking my eighth-grade teacher. I made friends with her daughter just so I could get close to her and, when her daughter wasn’t around, I would ride over to her house on my bike and just circle the block hoping to get a glimpse of her.
PGN: Since you were into ’80s television, which sitcom family did you want to belong to? BOL: Probably “Kate & Allie,” two sassy single moms living in a rowhome basement in Greenwich Village. The girls were about my age, so that would have been fun. PGN: Do you collect anything? BOL: I used to collect snow globes but then it was getting out of control and I was fearful that I could end up on an episode of hoarders. I try not to clutter, but I have a fear that deep down inside I could go there!
PGN: Useless talent? BOL: I can do accents and voices, including a wicked Elmo that has fooled many a small child.
PGN: I can’t live without … BOL: Coffee, cigarettes and music.
PGN: As a music aficionado, which songs are you embarrassed to admit you like? BOL: “Hold On” by Wilson Philips, “MMMBop” by Hanson or “I Want It That Way” by the Backstreet Boys!
PGN: What was the first R-rated movie you saw? BOL: Crazily enough, “Chariots of Fire” when I was 10. It was awful. I think my dad wanted to see it and it was his weekend for their custody arrangement.
PGN: Three celebrities you’d love to do lunch with? BOL: Oh, that would be Chrissie Hynde from The Pretenders, Doris Day and Eleanor Roosevelt. If I could break the rules and add a fourth, maybe Kelly Clarkson. Or shit, can I add Tom Selleck too? I am pretty sure he is actually my father and my mom just won’t admit it. PGN: Before we finish, give me a wrap-up of what the project gave to you. BOL: Before I took this on, I was someone who would defeat themselves before I tried something or someone who had to have a wingman at all times. I was ruled by fear. With this project, I did things I never thought I would do and I did them on my own. Since I chose to write every day, I had to go out and do things to write about. In December of last year, I walked into the William Way Center and started volunteering; I am currently their Tuesday night front-desk girl and am finally giving back to my community in a way that I never have before. In March, Philly Gay Calendar was looking for writers and I submitted some stories and got a spot. I joined the Fairmount Park Women’s Softball League on my own as well, am currently on the Dymond Gurlz and was voted onto the all-star team this past summer. For my 40th birthday, I jumped out of a plane! I did some stand-up/sketch comedy with Alejandro Morales in October at Camp Tabu and will be doing more. It’s been an amazing year and I’m looking forward to even more adventures in 2012. I hope everyone can find the inspiration this year to just get out there and go for life. If I can do it, anyone can!
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