I've been staring at this blank screen all morning, because I don't know how to put my scattered and hyper-emotional thoughts into words.
Obviously, I don't know Cory Monteith personally. If only I had been that lucky. But I have never had a celebrity's death strike as much of a chord with me as his has.
Glee premiered in the fall of 2009. I sat down and watched the whole first-half of the first season (it was released in halves, for some reason) while I was on Christmas break that year, half-way through my junior year of college. My mom and sister fell in love with it as much as I did. I laughed. I cried. I cared way too much for those characters. And no one appealed to me like Finn Hudson. Something about the character stuck with me long after the episodes ended. He was dopey. He was not the brightest bulb. He was uncoordinated and the epitome of the jock in high school that I never gave the time of day. But I loved him as a character. He was my favorite, by far. I felt I understood him, and on more than one occasion, I wanted to reach through the screen to give him a hug. He was the star and the heart of that show.
I went to Scotland for a semester soon after that. That semester sticks in my brain as the most difficult thing I have ever done, but also the best. But aside from castles and Nessie and taking classes at an institution older than the country I live in, what I remember most is Glee. Because I watched the entire first half season at least two more times while I was abroad, and then illegally watched the new episodes online as well. I introduced my friend Jesse to the show. The soundtrack was on repeat on my iPod all the time, carrying me across Scotland and back, to and from class, everywhere. I knew the words. I sang along when I could. It carried me back home.
Why do I remember that so much? Because I used more than a healthy amount of available energy to root for Finn and Rachel Berry. She was obsessive. Type A. A complete control freak and borderline annoying. That's how I felt, most of the time I was there. Finn and Rachel had a ton of things working against them, especially in high school, where popularity is the most important thing. And at the time, I was in denial about the imminent end of my current relationship.
I wrote a lot about that breakup, back in the fall of 2010. Don't reread those posts. They're messy. They're raw. I'd say they were embarrassing, except I'm not embarrassed by them at all. They're my version of C.S. Lewis's A Grief Observed. I gave everything I had to that relationship, because it was my first real one, where I was an adult and we actually took the time to plan out a potential future for us. And I'm a writer. What better way to deal with loss than to write about it?
But what I didn't write about was how I think I already knew it was over when I was in Scotland. We were drifting apart, spending less time on Skype and more time doing what we (separately) enjoyed. I got close enough to another guy to realize that my relationship wasn't satisfying me in every way it should. And he wasn't fighting for me. So it ended during the following summer. And while the circumstances were very different, Finn ended his relationship with Quinn for a similar end goal - he realized there was something more out there. He found Rachel.
Glee sang and danced its way into my heart early on. I stopped watching it regularly after the second season, mostly because of time and my lack of it. I kept telling myself that this would be the year I caught up, so I could watch again in the fall. But now... I can't decide if it's more or less important to do that, now that Cory Monteith is gone.
There's more to it than just Glee, though. He was great on Glee. He was the star. Finn and Rachel's performance of "Pretending" never gets old to me, and I honestly tell people that I prefer the Glee version of "Don't Stop Believin'" now to Journey's, as wrong as that sounds. But there's more to the story of why I am so devastated by his sudden death.
He and costar Lea Michele started dating in early 2012. He played Finn, she played Rachel - how could you not get on board with that? They would tweet pictures of each other at events and on vacations together, and they looked so incredibly happy. Everything I heard and read made it sound like they had found their other halves. Now, I'm a romantic, and having watched the show from the beginning, I was giddy. It's the happy ending that Finn and Rachel may not ever get, because of plotlines and all of that nonsense that keeps people watching a TV show. It was the real life Finchel. And it was beautiful. I always admired them and watched out for pictures in People. They didn't care that they were celebrities, because they were also people. And I love that.
But... now what? Cory is gone. He died. And Lea was left behind.
It hits me hard because I admired their relationship so much. And if God can take away someone who was so happy in a relationship, someone that people knew and looked up to... what does that mean for me?
I'm cynical. Always have been. I believe that good luck is a myth, and it's just the calm between storms of bad luck and misfortune. But here I am, happy in a relationship with someone. Here I am, in love. God took away a ray of sunshine, an optimist, when he took Cory Monteith. That's clearly not me, but it does fit my boyfriend a lot of the time. He's the more optimistic of the two of us. And I've gotten to this point in my life where I don't want to be away from him. I'm an introvert, and I like to be alone, but I've started thinking of my time alone as my time with him. Because I don't want to be alone anymore. But what if the impossible happens? What if he gets taken from me? You're not supposed to think about that, I know. And if it were to happen, I'd obviously have to deal with it. But... what if I can't? Can't deal with it, I mean. What if I don't have it in me? Cory was healthy, aside from his history of drug use. No one knows how he died, because there was nothing wrong with him, and foul play has already been eliminated. But my boyfriend has an anaphylactic peanut allergy. It could be something so simple, and all of a sudden... Nope. I can't.
He doesn't understand why I've been reading everything I can about Cory Monteith's death. He doesn't get why I care so much about someone famous. Someone I don't know. But I care because it hits close to home. I care because I have no choice. Glee is a part of my history. And Cory Monteith made it that way.
No, I didn't know Cory Monteith. But his sudden death has affected me all the same. It's made me see what I have. And more importantly, it's made me realize what I have to lose. I am cynical. But I can't lose this one. Because it would mean losing the happiness that I've found. It would mean losing the person I've realized I could become. And most importantly, and most terrifyingly, it would mean losing Andrew.
I haven't felt like this about anyone since... well, since I dated the guy I was with while I was in Scotland. But this is different. I am a real adult now. I see Andrew in all of the visions and dreams I have for the rest of my entire life. I see a wedding, and a house, and kids who look like bits and pieces of both of us. And I see a swing on a front porch, and two gray-haired people rocking and laughing 70 years from now, still happy and in love with each other. I'd be losing that. That future that I see in my head. I'd be losing him.
If I could reach through the TV right now, I'd pull Lea Michele in for a long hug. It wouldn't matter that I don't know her. It wouldn't matter that she's famous and talented and nothing like me at all. It would be a gesture, something to tell her that I can't possibly fully understand the pain that she's in. But the reason that I can't understand is because I have what it appeared she and Cory Monteith had. I just haven't had it ripped from me, suddenly and tragically, without warning and without the ability to cope with it. I would hug her, because I am praying constantly that I'll never have to feel that pain. I would hug her because I'm sure she needs it. She probably needs someone to hold her together.
To fellow Glee fans - don't expect the cast to say anything about his death. How can you expect them to feel anything but shock? And to everyone who thinks it's stupid to be affected by celebrity deaths - it's not. They are people, too. They are role models for situations that ordinary people find themselves in. Everyone needs a chance to grieve.
And to Lea Michele, and Monteith's family, who will never read this - I'm so sorry for your loss. I can't understand. But I can sympathize. Because if I lost what you now have, I'd unravel. I'd break.
I would break.
