The Lights You Make
And you only live forever in the lights you make
When we were young, we used to say
That you only hear the music when your heart begins to break
Now we are the kids from yesterday
-'The Kids From Yesterday,' My Chemical Romance
My friend Bethany died a little over a year ago. Technically a year ago yesterday by the time I'm writing this.
I guess it's also been a year since I cried off and on for a day and a half, listening to My Chemical Romance and Butch Walker in the wake of the news and chugging the Pedialyte someone in the Mainx24 parade gave me the day before in hopes that it would help me with a Jello shot hangover. Thank you and I'm sorry it didn't work out that way, kind stranger, but I guess there was always a percentage it would end up in the hands of someone who cries to The Black Parade.
Even a year on now, I feel like it shouldn't have hit me as hard as it did. That I shouldn't still be feeling it now. It's not like we were besties. We actually hadn't seen each other in person for a really long time when she passed. But grief is a funny thing and there was a time in my life that her and her husband were people I regularly spent time with. I have memories of her singing dancing in the living room of her parents' lake house to 'Knights In White Satin,' lit only by the TV, and sitting on her couch making fun of Katy Perry's performance of 'Dark Horse' at the Grammys. Of her insisting I needed to try on her old dresses at holiday parties and hyping me up even through my fog of depression and self-doubt. Of late nights at Dragon Con and board games and karaoke.
In short, she was my friend and I miss her.
I knew her at a time of my life I was insecure and sad, trying to figure out why I couldn't get it together. Which I guess is just existing as a woman in your 20s post-Great Recession with undiagnosed ADHD and autism, but I think... no, I know now it absolutely colored my own perception of how she viewed me in our relationship, in both the good moments and the bad. Trust me, there were a couple of bad, but so it goes with most any relationship that means something to you. In any case, I know now I was looking through a distorted kaleidoscope and accepting it as truth because I couldn't see anything else.
I can't say that turning 30 in a pandemic in a new city fixed everything about me. It definitely felt like it made things worse for a bit and that damn kaleidoscope still affects me. But I've settled into a life now that I have built something out of and god, I wish we could know each other now with the person I've become. I did have hopes of that it could happen someday when she was still around and I wish I had taken the initiative, but hindsight is 20/20 and all that jazz.
In the year since, I hope I've at least made up for it. By showing up for people and enjoying life beyond just showing up for markets. I took time this year to visit friends, travel to see two artists I really love live and the last Marvelous 3 show for a while, to rest, to see a musical I know you hated but that I love and still cried my eyes out to despite knowing how it ends, to be a lover and a hater at book club, to go to Play On Con and Dragon Con, to admire the weird and wonderful of the world around me in spite of everything happening, to sing...
To not wait to reconnect as I move through life older and... well, sometimes wiser.
I had hopes maybe someone would offer me a Malort shot at Mainx24 this year and I could suffer in your memory while you laughed somewhere in the Sweet Old Hereafter. It ended up not happening that way, but it was still a good time here in the old Therebefore.
My friend Will who I haven't seen in ages invited me to karaoke on Wednesday at the Boneyard here in Chattanooga. I'm gonna go and blow the roof off the place. I think it'll make up for the lack of Malort, at least.
You only live forever in the lights you make and I know yours continues to shine bright, Bethany. The least I can do is keep mine burning.
