A Michael Jackson fan comes out of the closet
I admit it. I miss Michael Jackson. His music defined my youth … my twenties… my middle age.
I forget that’s he gone. And when I’m reminded, I’m saddened. I know I didn’t really know him as a person. I know that all I ever saw was the public persona he put forward. But he seemed like such a gentle soul to me. An enormously talented artist who never got the chance to grow up, to have real friends, to escape the expectations of those around him.
In the months before his death, I heard the rumors that everyone else did: that he was tired, old, slow, and drugged out. But I just watched “This Is It,” the documentary made of the rehearsals for his last series of concerts, and Michael Jackson, at 50 years old, was still incredible. So so talented and so creative. He directed every note, every dance step, every nuance. And his singing and dancing — his presence on the stage — is beyond words. The man may have been eccentric, private, troubled and misunderstood, but the world has never seen a talent like him, and likely never will again.
I really miss Michael Jackson. Maybe it’s that his music takes me back to a time when I was younger and more free-spirited, but I don’t really care. I just know that, to me, the world was a better place with him in it.
Learning from Dogs 