#poor j

Two years ago I was drowning.

I have a good life. I’m married to my best friend who is amazing and supportive and loves me no matter what. He makes me laugh everyday. Does and says things just to see me smile. He’s amazing. I have two boys who are exceptional humans and so smart and handsome and talented and growing into awesome people. I have family close by, I have a home I love, a job that’s pretty sweet.

But within all that are lots of hard things, that I won’t get into, but they wore on me. I was beaten down, tired, losing my mind. And, slowly, I slipped into my own head and it wasn’t good in there. Still isn’t some days. I do/have(?) this thing where I have very vivid daydreams. I don’t really know how to explain it if you don’t experience it (in fact, I’ve only ever met one other person who does it too), but basically, I can get swept up in my head and will literally talk to people who aren’t there, act out scenarios, and at one point, I had an entire alternate life going on. And no, it wasn’t all peaches and cream over there either. There was a lot of angst too. It started to scare me, after a while, because I found myself heading there, not just right before I went to sleep as was usual, but whenever I was alone. Doing laundry, I would be there. Washing dishes, it was around me. Sitting quietly, crocheting, I was in it. It was becoming a lot. So, I decided to write one of the stories down. It became Crazy Love. And, with that, I realized I loved to write. Going back to writing was amazing and I started another story and another and another. And with that, I spent a little less time in my daydreams. It was good.

I don’t know why I turned on Supernatural the first time, but I did. And Bill and I watched the Pilot and half-way through I turned it off. I didn’t like it. Or, rather, it didn’t grab me enough to push me through the rest. So, we went about our business.

Things got really shitty again, and I couldn’t keep it together. And it was a lot outside the house too, issues with close friends who decided to become fuckers and try and ruin things. Anyway, I took it all inside myself and I was losing it. I started doing something occasionally that I found stopped me from crying; just pressing something sharp into my palm, mostly I used a paperclip. It helped. It kept me in the moment, let me focus enough to calm down. After a while it escalated into scratching hard with the edge, and then, a few times, and I’m not proud of this, I used a scissor when the paperclip wasn’t enough. It was getting bad.

Something made me turn Supernatural back on. Maybe I was done with a Lost rerun, maybe the cover art just grabbed me, but I did. And after I watched the pilot, I kept going. And going. It wasn’t truly until ‘Home’ that I realized I was in love. I spent night and day watching until I was done with everything on Netflix. Season 11 was still airing so I was stuck. I found a way to watch them online. I devoured everything. Then came the search for more. I found fanfiction.net and I went the fuck to town. I read everything. EVERYTHING. I fell in love with it all. I waited patiently for my favorite fic to update (I still go back to it, and it is my favorite ever. “Learning to Fly” by badasscompany) a thousand or so chapter Destiel Romance that I will never let go of. I started to write. I thought, writing helped before, let me try something with Dean and Sam. I posted on ff.net. Boy, people actually like this! Cool! I kept going. I stopped with the paperclips.

Then Misha joined Tumblr and I was like “What is this? I’ll go too!” And boy what a mistake. There’s so much more fanfic here and I like the format better! Hurray! Oh, I read everything. I remember first falling in love with Iwantthedean’s “Angeles” series. And then I found torn-and-frayed’s “STPB” and, that was it. I was officially hooked forever. Those two series brought me here and kept me here and I wrote and wrote and wrote. And here we are.

I’m not ashamed to say that my obsession with Supernatural is probably unhealthy. And it’s far from casual. It’s all inclusive. It’s all day, every day. I watch an episode before work every morning and then when I get home, at least one more. I listen to panels when I work out. I watch gag reels when I start feeling bad again. I surround myself with it because it helps. I live and breath it because I cling to it. I need it. I talk to Sam. Everyday. When I’m bored while cooking, I put on music and I do SNS and sing with Rob and Jensen. I really do. (Jensen and I do an amazing duet to Ed Sheeran’s “Thinking Out Loud” it’s awesome. lol) I’m in it. And yes, it’s insane.

But what else I’ve found are friends. Dear, true, honest friends. Sure, fictional characters have brought us together, but we stayed because we like each other. We stay because we can share things and be silly together, and laugh and cry together. These friends I have made because of this show are people that I will love forever. They know who they are, you probably know who most of them are, I’m not going to name everyone. Even the more casual friends I have made, mean so much to me. But there are a few, maybe four or five people, that I will call my friend for the rest of my life. I trust them, and I love them. I was so blessed to meet two of them this weekend and I will always remember the joy of finally being in the same room with them. I’m about to cry thinking about that.

I got very emotional at the convention. Mostly the entire time, but I kept it under wraps for most of it. But, during SNS, I broke down. Jensen came out and the amazement of hearing him sing was a bit too much for me. When they started playing ‘Brother’, I was done for. Him singing that in Vegas is a go-to video for me when I am at my lowest. I also hate it. Because in my mind, no one will ever sing that to me. No one will ever love me enough to want to say those things to me. But this weekend, it meant something else. It reminded me of the love I do have because of this show. It reminded me of the connections I have made, and the reason I was there, at that con, and had maxed out a credit card to be there. Because of friends. And because of this stupid show that has meant so much to me.   

Everyone there was just… happy to be there. Happy to be part of something. The fans were a family, whether we talked to each other or not. This show brought us all together. A thousand people were crammed into a room over a television show. I’ve been to a hundred conventions over the years, I’ve been an active Whovian for a long while, but nothing compared to this. Nothing has ever touched me, and helped me, and moved me in the way that Supernatural and this Fandom have.

What’s the point of this? I don’t know. I think I just needed to explain myself to the people who saw me cry and panic and act a fool all weekend. I feel silly about it, but here we are.