Finding Myself

It’s a weird sensation when a celebrity dies. And worse when their death comes at their own hands. We mourn them in a way that is completely different to the way we mourn a friend or relative.

We do not mourn the deaths of celebrities because we knew them but because they helped us to know ourselves.

It’s a statement I have read in a few different forms each time a celebrity dies. Either from a grieving fan on social media or a grief counselor in a blog. And I’ve chosen to echo these words each time someone who has helped me to know myself is taken from our world. Because each time, it becomes harder to explain what person meant in my own life. So I fall back on a quasi-quotation that exists without any definitive attribution.

On July 20, 2017, rock and roll heaven gained one more shining star. And I, like much of the world, spent the day in a state of disbelief and shock. To be fair, I write this now, in that same state. It wasn't long before the news had spread; Chester Charles Bennington, one half of the vocal duo behind the band Linkin Park, had taken his own life.

I was 20 years old, in my second year of university, when Linkin Park released Hybrid Theory. It was something I filed away as something to listen to in special circumstances. When I needed something loud and energetic, even angry, to get “pumped” for a night out.

I was an angsty teen, that is undeniable. I did the things that were expected of a girl in a small town high school. I participated in sports and had friends and all of those “All-American Teen” things but I was only ever comfortable being creative. On stage as a performer, in my art classes, in my writing classes. I didn’t fit the mold that the adults wanted me to fit.

But when I went to college, that all changed. Sure, there were days when I hated everyone and everything. And there were sad days and lonely days but 90% of the time, I was comfortable and I fit in with people with whom I wanted to fit in, instead of being stuffed into a box. I was, for the most part, happy. Angsty rock music had fallen out of vogue in my personal life, other than for the purpose of casual listening.

But I continued listening. I remained a fan of Linkin Park as I grew and as they grew and my appreciation of them evolved as circumstances in my life changed.

I have talked on many occasions about bands that saved my life, during a particularly dark time when people close to me thought I would die of a broken heart. Looking back on that time, now, I understand their concern at the time and, had I been more present in my own life, I might have shared their concern. Linkin Park both fits and doesn’t fit that category.

I relied very heavily on the music of a handful of bands in that time of my life. Linkin Park was on the edge of that. I had been completely numb for a long time and found music that alleviated that numbness and helped me feel again, cliché as I know it sounds. I didn’t feel better, that came later, but I felt, and that was an marked improvement over feeling nothing.

As the numbness subsided, it was replaced with pain and anger. When I felt angry, Linkin Park offered me an outlet to channel the anger and lose myself in the heavy melodies and in Bennington’s screams. I could be angry without being destructive. I could be angry without hurting myself or anyone else. I could be angry without lashing out and saying horrible things to people who didn’t deserve my anger.

It wasn’t until about eight years later that I figured out that I had done that. I knew, coming out of that darkness, that this band and that band had been integral to my healing process, and realistically, to my survival. But until I stood, hugging the barricade, watching Linkin Park perform those same songs in which I had buried myself, I hadn’t realized how much they had meant to me. They were still angsty, angry, scornful lyrics. The melodies were still as hard and heavy, pounding in my core, changing the rhythm of my heartbeat to match their own. The screams were still deeper than could legitimately be called even guttural. My anger had, for the most part, receded but I was hit with the realization that every reason I had loved this band for more than a decade was still very deeply rooted in everything that I had become.

In 2012, I had been writing album reviews for a then-ten-year-old internet entertainment magazine for a while and when I got my hands on Linkin Park’s newest album, Living Things, I wrote what I still consider one of my best reviews ever and I almost don’t even feel like I wrote it so much as acted as a conduit to put it into the universe. Within hours of publication, the Linkin Park Association, a fan group with direct ties to the band, had shared the link on social media, praising my words. Trivial as it might seem, that is still one of my proudest moments as a writer.

Today, July 20, 2017, I received a message from someone who was there by my side when I was putting myself back together, asking me if the news she had seen was true. I have spent every second since that moment thinking about what Linkin Park, and by extension, Chester Bennington, has meant to me. I wrote a lot of this piece in my head before ever finding myself at the keyboard. Once again, I don’t know that I am writing it as much as I am delivering it to the world. I don’t know if I have accurately conveyed my devastation. I don’t know if it is something that can be accurately conveyed.

Rest easy, Chester. Thank you for helping me through my own pain. I hope yours is gone, now.