On October 6th, 2015, my life changed forever.
One of my dearest friends, who was like an older brother to me, was killed in a car accident. I woke to a voicemail from a mutual friend of ours telling me he had passed away.
I spent the day in a fog. I went to my college classes - I would later choose to withdraw from them, leaving school entirely for the better part of a year - running on autopilot. I spoke to my professors, collected the required homework, and left campus.
It was here that my world broke apart. Anxiety that I'd managed to just barely stuff down and keep under wraps for the last few years roared to the surface. Traumatized, shaken, improperly medicated, for a time I simply stopped functioning at all. I did nothing but write and play video games. I employed every distraction method I could think of, my brain doing anything possible to not feel the full depth of this loss.
Over time - and I can't say just how much time, because I have so few memories of this entire year that the time it took for me to lose control of my life could have been weeks, months, a mere hour - the grief only grew stronger. It impacted every moment of my waking life. Even in sleep, I wasn't free from it - I had nightmares about the way he had died, the sheer terror he must have felt. I would wake from these dreams wishing I could bring him back, the course of my day knocked askew by sadness.
I stopped leaving the house, despite being begged to do so. At times my anxiety was so strong I couldn't even leave my bedroom, because the once simple act of stepping foot into the hallway triggered a sense of terror that left my chest tight, my head spinning. Winter, already a difficult season for me to endure, was all but impossible to navigate.
I started seeing a therapist. I was put on a new course of medication. I made slow steps towards my previous definition of "normal" but in the meantime I missed out on life. Concert after concert went unattended. Even the thought of seeing Paramore again couldn't counteract my most persistent thought: that the world was a dangerous place.
Still, I tried. Two years went by where recovery felt like a futile struggle, yet anticipation of something greater on the horizon lingered in the back of my mind. My goal was to once more be able to attend a Paramore show and, knowing about Parahoy, I decided my end goal would be not just to go to a concert, but to be well enough to go on the cruise.
To say that much of Parahoy was difficult for me would be a vast understatement. In the days leading up to boarding the boat, I had panic attacks that basically paralyzed me. The morning of April 6th I sat on the edge of a hotel bed, mumbling incoherently about how I needed to go home, unable to do anything but sob. I sat and trembled. Watched the clock. As the hours ticked by I was on the verge of vomiting, having hardly eaten anything over the last few days due to the fear sweeping through my body. I took a pill that I only use for emergencies (and to my brain, this was an emergency - it shouted warnings, begging me to listen to things the rational side of my mind knew were lies). I ate. And somehow I boarded the shuttle to the Port of Miami.
At Paramore's first show, I started thinking once again about how this was all a mistake, it was all dangerous, I should have just stayed home. Once again fear-induced nausea overtook me. I eyed the plastic grocery bag nestled in the bottom of my scooter. Debated lunging for the trash can I could see out of the corner of my eye.
A staff member escorted me to a spot that was the closest to the stage I had ever been at any show. I could hardly believe my luck. Here I was, a trembling mess, scared out of my mind for no real reason, and already the universe was telling me I had done the right thing.
I settled into my spot - only a handful of rows away from the stage - and tried to remind myself to breathe. I popped a mint and told myself I would be okay, that my anxiety was lying to me, that Paramore would take the stage soon. That I couldn't just leave and give up this spot.
One of Paramore's songs contains the line "for all the air that's in your lungs / for all the joy that is to come". I kept focusing on that line during what seemed like a lifetime but couldn't have been more than a few minutes. Joy was mere feet from me and I knew it.
When they took the stage, from the first note they played, my fear evaporated. I felt unrestrained joy; for the first time in three years, I was staring at my favorite band. I forgot about everything but the music - forgot the panic attacks, the moments of compulsive skin-picking where I would lose all control of myself and tear holes in my body, the sobbing fits, the screaming, the sensation that I was never safe, that danger lurked wherever I looked.
From the first song to the last of the night, all of those thoughts stopped. Paramore had always been a healing force in my life, but never quite to this degree. Nothing I'd tried to silence my mind had worked. And yet that night their music was the answer, a way of healing pains I didn't even know I had. I danced and screamed and fist-pumped and cried and smiled harder than I had in years.
As the cruise went on, I continually felt reassured that I had made the right choice by boarding the boat, as hard as it had been to do. I ran into people I knew from the internet who I wouldn't have had the opportunity to meet otherwise. And I met Cristi Williams, who called me a bright star and gave me just a little more courage on what had been an anxiety filled morning.
I can't explain "why Paramore?" It's a question I've been trying to answer for the last ten years. To most people, I'm sure I look like just another obsessed fan. But it's the only obsession in my life that heals my anxiety instead of exacerbating it, and I feel that's worth mentioning, no matter how silly or weird it might sound.
Maybe there is no answer as to why I connect to them in a way I have yet to do with any other band or artist. What I do know is that no other band could have motivated me to go across the country and board a cruise ship. No one else could have cut through the fog of grief warping my mind and pulled me back to reality.
Thanks, Paramore. I'll see you again this summer.
*Edited to fix a date - his death was 10/5, I was notified 10/6.
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