Special Snowflake

I have always hated the expression “special snowflake.” The implication is, when this particularly snarky phrase is employed, that the person in question is not so special and is, in fact, just a snowflake like all of the other snowflakes out there. Yes, I realize that the belief is that no two snowflakes are alike, but these two words when put together imply that someone thinks s/he is…well, more special than all of the other snowflakes. And this bothers the crap out of me because I feel that we ARE all special snowflakes- with no snark at all intended. Every last one of us is special and wonderful and unique and deserving of all we desire, and just because we think this does not make us entitled or delusional or- most importantly- of the opinion that we are somehow better than the other snowflakes.

But this weekend I had a comeuppance of sorts in relation to my particular belief in my own special snowflakeness. As any of you who followed my weekend at ComicCon via Facebook know, SDCC was a huge disappointment for me. I went in thinking I was going to get to get a tshirt signed by the cast of Sons of Anarchy - never bothering to look more fully into a) the way the tickets for said signing were being dealt out by FOX, aka The Evil Empire or b) the fact that even those who did get tickets were only allowed to have the provided poster signed by the cast- unpersonalized, no real face time with the actors and definitely no passing along of the cookies I am now very grateful I was too lazy to make before I left Santa Monica. I also thought that I’d get into Hall H to watch the Sons of Anarchy panel, and even after I saw the literally tens of thousands of people in line for Hall H, I still rationalized that since the Dr. Who panel was over hours beforehand, I’d certainly be able to find a seat in the cavernous epicenter of the ComicCon experience. Let me be wholly, nakedly honest with you all- I spent just around $500 on my overall ComicCon experience to do the two aforementioned things – and I got to do neither. And it sucked. And I think that while I publically applied logic to my belief that I would get to do these things (“I am getting there really early!” “The hall will clear out in time for the panel I want to go to, and anyway it’s at the end of the weekend, so who’s really going to stick around for it?!”), the sad truth is that I believed I would get to do these things simply because I wanted to.

Let me be even a little more honest for a moment. I generally get what I want a good deal more than your average person. Whether this is because I am very tenacious or because I can be very charming or because I do seem to have better-than-average luck most of the time, I don’t know. I just know that people I am close to marvel at the way things often fall my way, and people who don’t know me or don’t like me… well, don’t like me even more. I posted on Facebook that I wanted a ticket to ComicCon long after they had ostensibly sold out; a ticket to ComicCon appeared (thanks to a generous friend who let me buy one of the tickets allotted to his booth). My lodging plans got more complicated than I was happy with; a reasonably priced hotel within a reasonable distance was suddenly available (and I got an upgrade, btw! J). These things were well within my wheelhouse and the “bubble” (a la Jon Hamm’s character on 30 Rock) within which my life often seems exist.

But friends far more experienced with San Diego ComicCon kindly (or at least matter-of-factly) told me that I was going to be tired of the lines, that even if I waited I wasn’t going to get into what I wanted to, that the crowds would prove daunting and that I was not going to have the golden experience I anticipated and, frankly, felt I deserved. And I poo-poo’ed them soundly. I knew more than they did- not about ComicCon, per se, but about me. And my special snowflakeness was simply not going to be bound by the rules and parameters that the rest of the hoi polloi were subject to.

Lesson learned.

I’m not going to stop thinking I am special, nor that anyone else is every bit as special as I am. But I think I have had a valuable (and rather pricey, both financially and psychologically) experience in recognizing that there are some things that I can’t want into existence simply by the strength of my desire to make them so (Number One ;-). And if this lesson is going to prove truly worthwhile and actually have some value beyond my just swearing up and down that there is no effing way I am ever going to ComicCon ever again, I need to extend it a bit.

There are other things I want- to be thinner and healthier, to meet someone I can have a loving, healthy, romantic relationship with, to more consistently be the better version of myself I see from time to time. And if I really want those things, then I am not going to be able to just “magic” them into existence through the sheer force of my desire for them: I’m going to have to do some actual work in those directions. And it’s not going to be easy work. It’s going to require discomfort and self-denial and making difficult and unpleasant choices in the short term because they will…no, may… lead to better things in the long term. And even if I put in all that time and effort and thought and desire, I still may not get what I want, but I need to be willing to take that risk.

For now, I am going to thank my friends for not saying “TOLD YOU SO, DUMBASS!”  and I’m going to go ice my aching knee to make up for the hell I put it through this weekend. Maybe my snowflake will regain some of her sparkly specialness when I can take the leap of working towards something(s) I want while fully recognizing I might not land softly. 

Saying Goodbye to Cory Monteith

I don’t know exactly why Cory Monteith’s death is producing such deep, profound and unmitigated sadness in me. Of course the death of those who pass too young is always heartbreaking. Of course it is even more so when you know the death is avoidable, such as is the case when addiction or mental illness takes them from us. And of course, I was and am a big fan of Glee. But the depth of feeling I have in relation to Cory’s untimely demise goes beyond that. I mean, as a fan of Angel I’ve had to deal with the death of two of its stars far before they should have left this earth, and lord knows I’m a bigger Whedonite than I am a Gleek. 

Part of it, I think, is having watched the journey that Cory’s character Finn Hudson had taken and what his character’s growth meant to the scores of young people who watched the show. Finn showed that you could be cool and be into singing show tunes. He came back from devastating personal blows (his best friend got his girlfriend pregnant, his wedding to his next girlfriend didn’t happen, he essentially flunked out of the military) to finally find a path that had the potential to lead him in the right direction. Finn decided he wanted to be a teacher, and this plot development on Glee happened right around the time that the news broke that Cory was reentering rehab. Having successfully combatted addiction as a teenager, at the urging of friends and family (and long before he was famous), Cory was unusually forthcoming about his struggles and brutally honest about the fact that he once again needed help. The fact that the character with which he will now always and only be associated also had struggled and found the help he needed (but would undoubtedly have had a happier ending than Cory) just breaks my heart.

I have read posts by some uncharitable people who say that addiction is a weakness, that it was stupid of Cory to get back into the drugs that would ultimately take his life. Those people are wrong, plain and simple. People don’t choose to become addicts, and they certainly don’t choose to die from overdosing on drugs or alcohol. Addiction is a disease, not a choice. It isn’t as simple as “Just say no” (one of myriad reasons why I refuse to give money to anti-drug-and-alcohol programs that take this grossly simplistic approach). Something in the psychological and physical wiring and chemistry of addicts is different, something about them creates a dependency that in the rest of us would only at worst lead to some pictures we’d rather forget and at best an evening or two we can’t remember. As Cory himself acknowledged in several interviews, his need for drugs didn’t stem from a desire to have a good time.  It was a response to a deep, terrifying loneliness that made him feel different from everyone else around him. Drugs provided an escape and a way to not be Cory for a little while, and because of his underlying medical and psychological issues he became an addict. Ironically, it was the fact that his character Finn was so different from this, at least before more depth and layers were added to his persona, which drove Cory to come forward three years ago and share his troubled past.

Glee has dealt with a number of important issues that are often on the minds of its young fan base (and some of us older Gleeks, too)- coming out as gay and transgender, teen pregnancy, illness in a parent, homelessness, betrayal of friendship, and not knowing what one wants from one’s future. Some of my younger friends are wondering if the show will be cancelled now, but I would be surprised if that were the case. That old adage “the show must go on” isn’t just about Broadway, and the Glee franchise is a multimillion dollar business that employs hundreds of people whose lives will go on even if Cory’s will not. My hope is that Finn is written out of the show as having gone to get his teaching degree at some far-away college, and Ryan Murphy and his team will elegantly write some sort of graceful closure for Rachel, Finn’s Glee soul mate (I can’t even begin to address how poor Lea Michelle, Cory’s real-life fiancée, will deal with this). But then I hope they will take it one step further. I hope that they will have one of the characters on the show struggle with addiction and lose the battle; no neat solutions or loose ends tidily cleaned up within the 44 minutes of the show. And I hope they then spend a good, long time focusing on how this affects those left behind, how addiction hurts those who never even touch drugs or alcohol at least as much as it harms the addicts themselves. If that keeps one Glee fan from starting down the road to addiction, if it makes one viewer who is already addicted seek treatment, if it offers comfort to one family member of a deceased addict who can say, “I’m not struggling with my loss alone,” then Glee will truly have moved on from just being a show about good-looking kids with nice voices.

Rest in peace, Cory. Thank you for returning the compliment when I told you that you had nice teeth. Thank you for creating an iconic character who brought a lot of good into the lives of many fans who need role models like Finn Hudson. And thank you, I hope, for providing an inspiration by negative example through your death. It would be better to still have you with us, but since we can’t I hope your legacy is that you made people happy in life and thoughtful in death.