fandoms, on the importance of

let’s talk about fandoms, shall we?

although i am sometimes ashamed to admit it, i am a part of the glee fandom. the glee fandom used to be a really nice place (most of the time) where you could find people who liked what you liked. you could find people who just wanted to talk about a show that was good and funny and heartwarming.

and it seems like ours is a fandom of underdogs. which totally makes sense once you know that glee is a show about underdogs. i’ve seen people go through all kinds of turmoil, and there are people who have probably seen me in my worst moments.

yet somehow, i love them, and they love me, and collectively, we watched a show together.

over the past, eh, year ish, ours has become a bitter fandom. there are a ton of different things that have contributed to this, and i could talk about it for a long time, but that’s not what this is about.

the nice thing about my little piece of the glee fandom is that there are people i’ve known for over two years and they’re kind of my support system. when i got really busy with junior year and ultimately became less involved, these people still cared about me and how i was doing and let me whine and whine and whine to them. i love them all to pieces. they know that.

these are people who understand me more than anyone else, and we laugh and cry and yell. but we all do it together. i mentioned in my last post that when i found glee, i was really lost and confused and i needed… structure almost. glee and its fandom gave me that. i found a group of people who love what i love, and we all got along swimmingly.

they live in missouri, north carolina, ohio, canada, new zealand, brazil, the uk, florida, washington, georgia, puerto rico, and one of the things about being friends with such an expansive, both metaphorically and literally, group of people is that when my friends are sad, i don’t get to bring them ice cream and watch cheesy movies with them and let them cry until they feel better.

i’ve known this for a very long time, and it’s always made me sad, but it hurts the most right now. when we’re all so upset/crushed/destroyed about the loss of our cory monteith, it hurts my heart to see these people that i love more than anything so so upset. i wish i could put all their pain upon myself because i would in less than a second.

i’m dealing with all this emotions as i try to come to terms with this major loss in my life (because as ridiculous as it sounds, it is, okay?), and they are too. we’re all trying to help each other in any way that we can just to put a little smile on someone’s face.

for example: one of my best “fandom friends” (although she is one of my best friends in any sense) is currently in the city of new york, visiting her sister. awhile ago, i told her about my favorite cookie place in the city, urging her SHE MUST GO EAT THESE BEAUTIFUL COOKIES, and yesterday we were texting, just trying to process everything (god knows we still are and will be for a long time), and she said that she wants to send me some of these beautiful cookies. i live in texas, and she is obviously in new york, and it will be very very expensive to send me them if she ultimately does. (i put those in italics to emphasis that she is the most beautiful person.)

the point i’m trying to make here is that really, i don’t care about the cookies. i mean, yeah, it would be really awesome if i could have some without being in new york, but it’s just that she wanted to. that’s so amazing to me, and she does not nor should she feel compelled to somehow overnight me cookies or whatever. i feel kind of silly typing out this anecdote because i’m almost certain that it will sound silly to anyone but she or i.

but, honestly, just that she wanted to… it means the world to me, and she is well aware how much i love her. (it is exponential, unmeasurable amounts, if you are curious.)

okay, i really got distracted by my wonderful friend and cookies and anecdotes. sorry about that. but anyway, as a member of this fandom, i’ve come across a lot of negativity and people who have no concept of reality whatsoever, but at a time when we’re all grieving, it’s… i don’t want to say nice, but it’s nice to see people who are going out of their way to make others feel better.

and that’s exactly what cory would’ve wanted.

love for someone who can’t receive it

there are very few people, who, if they were to die, would cause me to feel like i’m falling off a cliff that never hits the ground. 

however, cory monteith is one of those people. 

i love cory monteith. i love him so much. present tense. it will always be present tense. 

if you were to rewind just a little more than four (i think it’s four) years ago, you’d find a little girl who was so lost and so hung up on all the wrong things in the place of this girl who is almost 18 today. 

then you’d find a little girl who found glee. 

i first stumbled upon glee right before the first season ended, and it kind of impacted my life in this huge way. i became more confident, i didn’t really care what other people thought of me, i wanted to be better. 

then you’d find a little girl who found cory monteith. 

cory monteith was (god, that hurts to type in past tense SO MUCH) a man who was essentially everything i wanted to be. smart, funny, cute, well-rounded, talented, nice, friendly. an all-around warm person. i could quite frankly go on forever. 

i was a confused little girl who was going into high school (i think) and who didn’t really have any sort of guidance. but then i found cory monteith. 

i never met him. i’ll never get the chance to meet him. but he’s shaped the girl who’s typing this blog post in a way that i can hardly articulate. his problems in the past only seemed to make him work harder. i want to be that person. 

i woke up this morning to 82 texts and four missed calls. granted, 72 of them were from the same person. all of them had to do with his death. (if i thought past tense hurt, death hurts about 600 times more.) i owe about 80 of those texts to people that i’ve become friends with due to my love of glee and cory monteith and finn hudson. 

to say that this boy has changed my life would be such an understatement. 

i never met him. i’ll never meet him, but right now i just feel like he was my best friend and now he’s gone. i am so proud that i got the chance to call myself a fan of his. i know for a fact that he was the most incredible man, and despite everything, i have nothing but love and respect and admiration for him. 

i woke up at 7:45, and it’s safe to say that by 7:46 i was a crying sobbing mess. by 7:50 i had my fingers down my throat in an effort to get myself to breathe. two hours later i’m still basically the same.

i can’t stop crying for all the things he’ll never get to do or say or be. he deserved so much more than this, and it shatters my heart that none of that will ever happen. 

the only thing i can equate this to is that when i was little, i loved crocodile hunter. it was my favorite show, and i watched it all the time. then steve irwin died, and i thought it was a practical joke. after the news broke, i went around for days saying that it was just a joke and then he was going to come out, yell SURPRISE, and then wrestle some alligators. 

i know cory is gone. i know that everything hurts right now and that this is the literal definition of gone too soon. i want it to be a sick joke. i want all of this to be funny in a couple days after he tweets and says “gotcha!” cory, i promise i won’t be mad. not even a little. 

i hate the past tense. i will rework the entire english language if i never have to use the past tense. i never, ever want to say “cory monteith was a beautiful human being” because he is a beautiful human being. nothing will ever change that. i don’t care what his autopsy might say, or two stints in rehab, or problems with addiction may say. 

he is so many different things to me, and he’ll always be those things to me. death be damned. 

i’ve spent all day mulling over this post and what i want to say to this person who was the most incredible role model i could’ve asked for. i just got off the phone with my lovely, beautiful ashley, and would you care to guess how we met? you bet your bottom it was through glee and finn and rachel. we’ve been friends for… a little more than two years, if i remember correctly. (ash, can you confirm this? is it two or three? i’m so murky on all the dates.) ashley is amazing and beautiful and wonderful and she’s been kind enough to impart her wisdom on me many, many different times on many, many different subjects. 

it’s probably safe to say that we wouldn’t be friends today if it weren’t for him.

we talked about soooo much, and honestly i’m feeling much better. of course the pain/hurt/shock/grief/anger/splitting headache is still there. i think it’ll be there for a long time. but she understood me and i understood her and that was honestly what i needed.  thank you thank you thank you, my lovely beautiful ashley. 

there are so many things i want to know that i probably never will, and that’s fine. it’s truly not my business, but i can only hope that guy who was larger than life and touched so many is in a better place, free from his struggles. 

i think a lot about last words after reading looking for alaska approximately 600 times. it breaks my heart that i’ll never know his. edna st. vincent millay fell down the stairs to her death, and she landed right next to a poem she was working on with a line that reads as follows: “blessed is this day, no matter who has died.” 

it feels so bittersweet to say that. but it is a good life. it will continue to be a good life. i will work hard to ensure that because that’s what cory would want, i think. today was not fun, tomorrow will not be fun, the foreseeable future will not be fun, but “it is a good life, hazel grace.” 

there are flashes of “oh, it’s a normal sunday” but then i remember. then i force myself to remember that he’ll never really, truly be gone because there are an abundance of people will carry on his legacy with nothing but pride, myself included. 

i owe him the world, and i’d give it to him, if only i could.

i love him more than words can say, and for now that will have to be enough because i’m not so sure what to say. 

do you want the truth or something beautiful?

(how’s that for food for thought?) 

sometimes… sometimes bad things happen. sometimes bad things to bad people. sometimes bad things happen to good people. and worst of all, sometimes really bad things happen to really good people. 

so, i’ve pretty much been a mess since sunday when cory monteith checked into rehab. i’ve been a wreck. a ten car pile up. an eighteen wheeler that broke a bunch of those barriers on the highway. 

preface. 

i love cory monteith so much. not in a “oh mi gawd i love harry styles sooooo much” way. (why is harry styles a thing? go away.) i love him in a way i can’t put into words. i think it’s so rare to find a person who is so innately good, and kind, and genuinely wonderful. cory monteith is that person for me. he has one of those smiles that makes you want to smile in. also he manages to be cute and downright sexy at the same time which is… awesome as a 17 year old girl to see. hehe. 

recently i found the most lovely quote:

the people you love become ghosts inside of you, and like this, you keep them alive. 

and quite frankly, that speaks volumes to me. perhaps it sounds totally silly, but i believe, firmly, that cory monteith has helped me become a better person. 

his strength makes me strong. his bravery makes me brave. and his ability to take a leap, a scary one, take the first step, is so overwhelmingly good and pure and right. i want to do that. i want to be that person. one who picks what is right over what is easy. 

i love cory monteith. all that he is, all that he represents. he’s a good guy, and good guys always go far in my book. 

and like this, i keep him alive.

anyway. monteith, before playing the love of my life finn hudson on glee, had a very troubled past. dropping out of high school, drinking, drugs, stealing money from family members. at 19, he landed himself in rehab.

and at 30, he’s there again. 

he checked himself in on sunday night. 

i cannot even begin to express the amount of love, respect, and admiration i have for this one singular being. the amount of sheer strength it takes to walk yourself into a rehab facility, i can’t even fathom that. 

almost as soon as the news broke sunday (right after my last post went up, actually), #wesupportcory was a worldwide trending topic on twitter. fans everywhere tweeted him with nothing but love and messages of “i hope you’re okay!” 

for me, it’s rare to look at a large group of people and just feel warm on the inside. i’m still warm today. 

the writers, crew, cast of glee sent nothing but love love love on monday/tuesday. all of which made me cry. (have i mentioned i cry a lot?)

it was amazing to me to see so much love being outwardly sent to this beautiful man. truly my heart is happy. 

but then there’s the ugly side. the addiction. the truth. and that breaks me in half. 

 

i promise i had a clear idea of what i was going to type in this post in my head, but then i sat down and started typing. now i am a mess of tears.

until next time. 

(ps the picture below is for a some sort of collage thing, and i just wanted to join up! i am super proud of myself for coming up with the placement of we and support and cory. if you don’t know, that’s american sign language for i love you. <3)