what a feeling

The death of someone so important to me as a child, a teen, even today, even though I never met him. I saw him in concert twice with his four best friends. I had a doll in his likeness that I never removed from the box. I always wanted the best for him despite how he chose to move on and away from the band. My heart is shattered and shocked yet I cannot seem to cry. I spent 5+ years, my entire time in high school, obsessed with this person and his friends. I spent so much of my free time focused on this person who is suddenly gone. I never outgrew it. I never moved on, I just grew up and couldn’t focus as much attention on it. I felt at one with the band as they went their separate ways and followed different paths, I did as well. It felt okay. It no longer feels okay. It feels so deeply wrong in ways I can’t even begin to describe. This isn’t the death of my closest family members or friends, it’s someone I didn’t even know. Yet they basically held the better part of my attention a young adult. They helped shape me into the person I am today. They’re gone and my heart is broken but I’m an adult and death is not easily felt anymore. The grief comes in waves. Maybe I will cry next week. Maybe I will hear his voice in a song on shuffle and lose my shit then. I would have called out of school for real if I heard this news 10 years ago. People would be seriously asking if I was okay. They would also probably laugh, but they would still ask. Nobody is asking if I’m okay. I’m informing the most important people in my life about this news and the reaction is so minimal it’s cringeworthy. Who I used to be is screaming crying shaking hyperventilating alone in the corner of her room inside my soul while I stare stone faced at my phone in the silence. What.