I really didn’t intend to take a break. I’ve started dozens of posts, only to delete them. I’ve got dozens more sitting in my drafts. Some of which, months later, make no sense and will ultimately join their predecessors in the trash.
January of 2020 set the scene of me having to go back and rescue posts that had gone missing from the site entirely. Others were set to private while I started adding new features to the site. Behind the scenes I had just started a new job at a tax office with American tax season in full swing, going from working 12 hours a week at my previous job to working a whopping 50. On top of working overtime I was in school full time beginning my last semester of my Esthetics program. While these changes caused obvious delays in writing and updates, I saw it as a temporary problem expecting my work schedule to relax in April and to graduate May 1st.
Of course there’s no one on the planet that doesn’t know what happened next. One Monday I was partying at Necto in Ann Arbor and the next I was leaving work early to go buy toilet paper, disinfectant, and hand sanitizer.
All plans went on hold indefinitely. Club doors were locked. Concerts cancelled. Schools closed. And inspiration and motivation died as the globe went into survival mode. My office closed for a few weeks only to reopen as an essential service. My esthetics program had to stop and couldn’t even do online work except for a few weeks because our state board wouldn’t allow it (although luckily we were able to head back to class in September and I graduated shortly thereafter). All my summer side gigs were cancelled. I couldn’t even bring myself to pick up my guitar except for a single day to celebrate Mick Mars’ 69th birthday. Oddly I haven’t played it since either. Not even for Mick’s 70th birthday last month. I’ve played a chord or two while helping my nieces practice tho. In all of it I couldn’t bring myself to write anything, and when I tried it wasn’t any good. I did manage to write about 50 pages of my new novel before that too go set to the side to collect dust.
In December I celebrated my 28th birthday alone. The first time I hadn’t celebrated on a dance floor, with a drink in my hand, surrounded by friends in YEARS.
Less than a month later I woke up to the world falling out from beneath my very feet. My good friend Alyse had passed away in a car accident. Any slight motivation I had to even want to write followed her to the grave. When it came time a few months later to renew my hosting and domain name, I honestly kept asking myself why I was even bothering. Nothing mattered. And I hadn’t posted in over a year. No one would even notice if I shut it all down and let it disappear into the ether. I could barely even get out of bed or stop crying, let alone summon the energy to finish the old updates, restore the missing articles, or do the research needed for new ones. And the idea of actually trying out new products to write reviews nauseated me. I started to think it really was the end of a project I had poured years of myself into.
So what changed? How am I here typing these words now?
Healing and grieving are strange beasts. The journey rarely follows a straight line. To make matters worse, they’re different for everyone. I found myself ignoring calls from my best friend Todd and when I did answer I just found myself nonstop talking about Alyse and crying. At times I felt like a horrible friend. Here he was, having not just lost his friend, but also his co-host for his show The Tattoo Music lounge. But he let me get it out and he kept me updated on the going ons of our friends and community given that I couldn’t bring myself to answer anyone else’s calls or texts either. With the exception of about one week tho, he never stopped his show. Each week he and several of our friends hit the studio each week, even when it was hard. To put smiles on other people’s faces. To just keep busy doing SOMETHING. To keep alive something Alyse loved dearly and put so much of her energy into. And honestly, in a way, probably to feel closer to her.
I watched other friends do similar things. Continuing to pour themselves into their projects and passions and with each of them I couldn’t help but see a bit of Alyse in all of it. Feel her energy still radiating throughout our little community.
It’s taken me a little longer to be able to do the same. Tax season saw me working upwards of 70 hours a week. My seasonal jobs were thankfully able to open up again so even now I still work 40+ hours a week, and won’t regularly get days off each week until September. I’ve been so busy at times I couldn’t even think and during those times, I healed. I’m not done grieving. Grief is never really over. We just get to a point it’s not all consuming and we have far more good days than bad. So now, I do what others in my community have done. I’m keeping Alyse with me by pouring myself into my own projects, weaving a bit of her into each sentence. She always supported my work on this blog and we spent so many nights going over what I should put on here. You’d be amazed how much inspiration comes out with a little tequila and good music.
So even if I couldn’t summon the motivation for myself, I’m doing this for her. Alyse was always my muse in so many ways. As many of my friends are. I find it good practice to surround oneself with people that inspire and encourage them. But Alyse was a sunbeam streaming through a crack in the clouds on a dark day. The rainbow after the rain. She had the most positive energy of anyone I have ever met. She was the light in the darkness. She’s the very idea of this site: the beauty in the dark and macabre. A cemetery rose.
With the plague seemingly coming to an end, the clubs are reopening and live shows are coming back. At least once a week Todd calls asking if I’m ready to head back out to the clubs that are without a doubt the very heartbeat of the Detroit Goth scene. Even more, they’re home. Like Cheers, they are where everybody knows your name. Our community is family. Part of me is still hesitating. I know I’ll feel her there. After a few drinks will I think I see her dancing out of the corner of my eye? Will I forget only to remember as I look for her on the dance floor? Will I cry? These are questions I’ve asked myself for months. What I do know is if I see her dancing out of the corner of my eye or maybe even hear her laughing, any tears will come with a smile. And I know the first things I’m gonna do are have a shot of tequila in her memory and put in a song request for Swamp Thing by her favorite band The Chameleons.
