'Til It Happens To You

I decided pretty spur of the moment to go visit my friends in Milwaukee last night, and I was extra glad I did when I realized that the Oscars were on. I haven't seen them in a few years -- not having a TV means I'm not as aware of when these things are on and don't have a good way to watch it.

I didn't see as many movies last year as I usually do or would've liked -- hopefully some new movie dates will come into my life in 2016 -- and in a lot of ways I would have been fine with giving the Oscars a miss again this year.

But then Joe Biden took the stage to talk about the prevalence of sexual assault on college campuses, and introduced Lady Gaga who gave what might have been the most powerful performance I've ever seen of 'Til it happens to you:

You tell me "it gets better, it gets better,
in time"
You say I'll pull myself together, pull it together,
"You'll be fine"
Tell me what the hell do you know,
What do you know,
Tell me how the hell could you know,
How! could you know

Till it happens to you, you don't know
How it feels,
How it feels.
Till it happens to you, you won't know
It won't be real
No It won't be real
Won't know how it feels

You tell me "hold your head up"
Hold your head up and be strong
Cause when you fall, you gotta get up
You gotta get up and move on."

Tell me, how the hell could you talk,
How could you talk?
Cause until you walk where I walk,
It's just all talk.

Till it happens to you, you don't know
How it feels,
How it feels.
Till it happens to you, you won't know
It won't be real (how could you know?)
No It won't be real (how could you know?)
Won't know how I feel

Till your world burns and crashes
Till you're at the end, the end of your rope
Till you're standing in my shoes, I don't wanna hear nothing from you
From you, from you, cause you don't know

Wow. Just Wow. I could tell by the way she sang it that she herself had been sexually assaulted, and indeed, she was, when she was 19 years old:

Till it happens to you, you don't know
How I feel
How I feel
How I feel
Till it happens to you, you won't know
It won't be real (how could you know?)
No It won't be real (how could you know?)
Won't know how It feels

My own assault happened when I was much younger, and one of the reasons I'm writing a memoir is so that people to whom this has happened will feel they have a voice, in the same way Lady Gaga gave the survivors she shared a stage with a voice:

Till it happens to you, happens to you,
Happens to you.
Happens to you, happens to you,
Happens to you ( how could you know?)

But it's also so that people who haven't been through it will know, or at least understand a little better, how it feels:

Till it happens to you, you won't know how I feel