Am I the Only One Still Having a Hard Time Trying To Process the Death of Cory Monteith?

There are only two things in the whole world that when I think about them, they can cause my tear ducts to fill up instantly; the day my dad died, and the death of Selena. Now I have a third. It’s been nine days and I’m not over the death of Cory Monteith and this has weirded* me out as much as it’s probably weirding you out right as you are reading what I can only assume will turn out to be my Cory manifesto. I'm really trying to process why I'm feeling this way.  Every time I tell myself I'm "grieving", I call myself an asshole. I truly can't conceptualize myself grieving someone that I never knew personally. It's so beyond the level of my brain functionality, but at the same time it feels like I am doing it. I’m going to try to figure it out while writing it out.

*This document is telling me that “weirded” and “weirding” aren’t words. I can’t deal with that right now Final Draft, let it go, please.

I never met Cory. I don’t have or know a friend of a friend of Cory’s. I don’t even think he knew I had a sex dream about him once. The only encounter I ever had with him was one morning in 2011. I saw him in his car at the intersection of Riverside and Pass in Burbank talking on his cell phone. I was like “Holy shit! That’s Finn!” followed by “Holy shit! He’s talking while driving!” and to further confirm that it was him, his tags were still Canada tags. I tweeted at him (while driving as well, it couldn’t wait) immediately after saying that I saw him driving while talking on his phone. I like to think the ONLY reason he didn’t @reply me and ask me to hang out sometime was because he was embarrassed he had been caught and it probably would have started a Twitter riot.

News that Cory had passed away broke on July 13^th at 10:30 PM PST, I received a text around 10:33 asking if it was true. I hadn’t been on any social networking sites for about an hour. I hopped onto Twitter like I usually do to confirm news and facts and there it was on CNN’s timeline. Looking back now, I’ve went into shock twice in my life. Once when a rock was thrown at my head and once when I broke my nose, both included enormous amounts of blood spewing from my body. This news was the first time I ever went into shock just based on emotion. The only words that could come to my head after realizing it wasn’t just a rumor were “holy fuck” and the acronym “wtf?” Those were the only things coming to my brain for a good half hour. The next thing I remember that popped in my head was “Poor Lea.” and that stayed in my head and is still in my head as I write this.

I spent all of Sunday the 14^th watching Glee episodes, and I wasn’t choosing the light hearted, fun ones to watch. No. I like to make myself suffer. I was basically watching the highs and lows of Rachel and Finn. I watched the graduation episode and lost it at the last scene* where they break up and Finn sends Rachel off to New York as he joins the army. I wasn’t watching it as Rachel and Finn though; I was picturing it as Lea Michele and Cory, my sobs in complete sync with Rachel’s. Mine continued though even after the credits rolled (maybe also in part due to the fact I was on my period).

*Equally heartbreaking is the scene where Rachel sings “Without You” to Finn.

Tuesday came along and I’d be lying if I said I didn’t have any assumptions that Cory had overdosed. I had assumed he had been popping pills or maybe doing some cocaine or something along those lines (no pun). At the same time I was getting angry with media sources like TMZ who were saying he was partying hard and drinking during his final night out. I thought to myself “Dude, don’t tarnish the guy’s name yet, we don’t know that. Maybe it WAS natural causes. It’s rare that happens to someone so young, but it could” (that’s verbatim what I said in my mind).  I knew that probably wasn’t the case, but in the very back of my mind I still had that tiny glimmer of hope saying “No way. He just got out of rehab a few months ago, there’s no way”.  I was on Twitter that afternoon just scrolling through my timeline and I believe @TVLine was first account I saw that broke the news of Cory’s autopsy results. I clicked on the link and saw that word; “Heroin.” My heart dropped in a way that it has never dropped before. It was almost like it really fell from my chest and I could physically feel the plop of it when it hit the bottom of my stomach. This was followed by a surprisingly super brief period of anger with a dash a disappointment where it went something like a head shake and a “Seriously, man? Seriously?”

It seemed the news got sadder every day following, especially the headlines dealing with Lea Michele. It was Lea not knowing he relapsed on heroin, it was how Lea found out he died, it was how she was with his family and helping make arrangements. I always had this thought that I was part sociopath, but after this I don’t believe I am (which is exciting and a bit saddening at the same time). I have so much empathy for this girl. I’ve always thought Lea was a pretty cool person and the phrase disgustingly talented doesn’t even do her justice, but I have these overwhelming feelings of utmost respect and this new founded admiration for her and who she is and how she is handling it all. She amazes me. Her being at the helm of trying to get Cory sober again. Helping Cory’s mom, wanting to get back to Glee because people need their jobs to pay their bills and take care of their families. I don’t think I could do what she’s doing if the love of my life on screen and off was gone so tragically and sudden. She’s the epitome of grace.

People who know me, know that I’m fascinated by addiction. I can almost say I’m addicted to addiction. I’m addicted to the different avenues of addiction. I’m intrigued by how I can go out with a friend for one drink they can just have one but I’m not satisfied with just one. I’m curious as to why whenever I’m sober I never crave a cigarette but when I’m drinking I feel like I  won’t survive the night without a drag. I'm fascinated by how Cory's seemed almost conspicious up until after the fact.

It was initially very hard for me to process that Cory Monteith had checked into rehab in March, it was even harder to process that he had overdosed on heroin. It was equally hard for me to process that he was an addict. He had his drug problem back before anyone one of us even knew his name, addict Cory wasn’t someone we were all familiar with. He wasn’t a Nick Stahl who has drug issues in front of all of us and if he should ever pass away it would be tragic, but not as shocking.   

I’ve been watching Glee all weekend and hindsight is so truly 20/20. If Cory hadn’t died, I don’t think I would notice the things I do now.  Like in 2009, maybe 2010 Cory did an interview where he was stated he didn’t drink. In the past two years or so though, you see pictures of him popping up at hockey games, on vacation, at events etc., with a drink in hand.  Also, in his last couple of episodes on the show, he’s extremely skinny. I started to think back to when I was watching season four this year, I thought “Wow, Finn looks good.”  It looked like he had just gotten fit. Re-watching it this weekend though, that wasn’t the case. He looked almost unhealthy. These things kind of have helped me with the why and how, not completely, but I’m not just sitting here with a look on my face that looks like I’m trying to calculate the square root of infinity.

Besides Selena, there has never been a celebrity death that has made me this upset. I don’t know why his death has this affect on me. Maybe it’s because we are so close in age, and watching Cory as Cory in interviews and behind the scenes and Cory as Finn, both of them seemed like a guy I would totally be friends with. I feel like I have guy friends like them. I feel like it could have been one of them.

The biggest thing I took from this is a twofold “you never know.” First, you never know when that last time you talk to someone will be. I have this recurring invasive thought on whether Lea was the last person Cory talked to and if she had gotten to say “I love you” to him, and him to her. Second, even though Cory had said before that he did “everything and anything” I would never look at the Cory we’ve known for years now and assume he was a guy that did heroin. Even when he talked about his drug past, him doing heroin was never something that even popped into my brain. The scariest part of “you never know” is this; you never know what is going on inside of someone.  

Thank you for entertaining me from Kyle XY (you done did Amanda wrong, son) until episode 4x19 of Glee.

You’ll be missed Cory.