on art and grief and fandom
I was scrolling on TikTok today, as one does when they decompress after work, and I ended up on a video of Andrew Garfield reciting a piece of writing on grief. There was a part of what he said that really got to me.
this is why art is so important because it can get us to places that we can’t get to any other way.
I'm coming up on the one year anniversary of one of my dear friend's death, and to say it's been a rough year would be drastically understating it. The thing about this year though, has been that it's been filled with some of the lowest lows I've ever dealt with, but also some of the highest highs.
I found fandom around a year and a half ago. I dabbled a bit when I was younger, but somehow ended up back in it at just the right time. Around six months after coming back into fandom, I lost my friend. I had never experienced grief before. I had no idea what to do with how I was feeling or how to process any of it.
Grief is one of the wildest things I've ever experienced, and it's so true that you really don't understand it until you've experienced it. I have such a deeper empathy for anyone who has had to know grief.
When my friend died, I found myself craving worlds and characters I already knew. I needed that familiarity, but I also wanted more. I think all of us in fandom know how absolutely incredible the writers are, and I ended up without really ever doing it on purpose (I mean a little on purpose, bc tags) reading a lot of stories with MCD, and grief as heavy themes. I found myself able to process my own grief through these characters and reach these places that I couldn't quite grasp in my everyday life.
Art is so important. I don't think I could have made it through this year without these stories and this art to process my own grief.
The thing about grief, is that after you know it, you're not the same person you were before. I think that's what made life so difficult. Because everyone in my life knew me as a certain person, in a certain way, but after my friend died, that person was gone. I don't know her anymore. I'm different now.
Finally stepping deeper into fandom and building relationships gave me an opportunity to get to know people for the first time as this person. This person who accepts themselves in such a deeper way, this person who wants to yap about these silly wizards, but also is making connections with people I never would have known had I not joined a random discord after someone asked if anyone wanted to do a group read.
Then, I started writing. I wrote a one shot about grief that I think healed parts of me I never expected it to heal.
There is such a power in art. Whether it's writing, or art, or edits, or whatever it is bc art can take so many forms. Art and fandom is so important, and it's so easy to get caught up on the silly little things, but today, today I'm reflecting on all the positives.
Art has gotten me through this year, and fandom has helped get me through this year, and the friends I've made have unknowingly helped me get through this year and I'm so thankful for it.
I'm so happy to have curated spaces with people I can yap about James and Regulus with, or our school studies, or our families, or music, or anything under the sun.
So, coming up on one year since losing my friend, I'm having so many feelings come back up because grief is not linear. But it's given me the opportunity to reflect on how important art, and writing, and fandom and the people I've surrounded myself in it are.
Between these people, their writing, their art, and the beautiful friends I have in my real life, I've been able to make it through this year.
Because Andrew said it so well, this is why art is so important because it can get us to places that we can’t get to any other way.
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