"He stood for the weirdos"

"He stood for the weirdos. He stood for the unique and he stood for those who couldn't stand up for ourselves." - Janelle Monae on Prince.

My husband called me at work in the afternoon. He couldn't talk long, but thought I'd want to know right away: Prince is dead.

(What I love is that he added: It's from a credible source. How well he knows me.)

I felt cold run through my body. Not a shiver, just coldness. Then I was googling, and then talking about it with coworkers, and not yet sad because I was still in a state of "well huh."

I was surprised, but I think I was less surprised than others. I don't know why. Maybe because while others think vegan=healthy, I know you can be vegan and totally not healthy. And others think skinny=healthy, whereas there's evidence to the contrary. And his last tour was at a piano--in other words, no longer jumping and running around. And it looked like he was referencing lyrics on a tablet. Maybe not, but it did make me wonder how he was doing.

At the concert last month I said to the UBERFAN next to me--well, it's good we came, cause you never know when we'll lose him. And UBERFAN was all Oh no, he's so healthy, he'll be with us for years! ...I kept my less optimistic opinion to myself. People die all the time from random shit. Prince died at the exact same age as the ex-crack cocaine addict Vanity, who had killed her organs. This is life. This is what the Book of Ecclesiastes is all about. It's why I finally made the effort to start going to his concerts: He won't be touring forever.

Still. I didn't think Prince would die ONE month later.

I listened to the tributes on the radio as I drove home. I couldn't help thinking: When I was in Nanaimo, I heard Prince on the radio once every day. Not kidding. In Montreal? Twice per year. Do you know who I hear once per week? Platinum Blonde. So I did feel a bit "FUCK YOU" towards the sudden outpouring of love and playing of songs.

I felt sadder and sadder. Of course, while my right brain mourned, the left side of my brain wondered why. I won't miss his albums, cause he wasn't putting out good music anymore. A song or two per album, that was it. And I've seen four concerts now, and had decided I would probably not go to another. So in terms of my day to day life, what had changed?

Once my left brain caught up to what my right brain already knew, I was finally able to have a good cry, and I wrote this *eulogy* on my facebook page:

My eulogy, as best as I can describe my feelings: I was really upset about something yesterday, and was still feeling upset when the Prince news came in. But oddly enough, what I was feeling sad about created the context for me to understand why I became such a big Prince fan in grade 6.

Around grade 4 I realized I was weird. There were the cutesie “normal” girls, and there were me and my friends. I’ve always been socially aware enough to know when I’m not the norm, but there was never a question of changing. I wanted to be accepted, but not Boring. I paid the price throughout high school, and hardest in grade 9 when my group of friends collectively dumped me. (Weird people aren’t always ostensibly ostracized for being weird—but that’s what it is. Not having socially acceptable behavior.)

It seems shockingly non-coincidental that when I “met” Prince in grade 6, I clung to him as one of the ports in my preppy world. He was super short, he dressed like a lady, he had a female guitarist, he sang about incest, he had an ejaculating guitar but sang about God, he straddled R&B and rock & funk and racial lines, and he followed up the biggest album of his career with the weirdest album of his career. He just didn’t give a shit. He was my hero and my role model. 

That imprinted on me, emotionally. I feel sick to my stomach when I think of the pain & loneliness of weird people, of socially awkward people, of eccentric people, of mentally ill people. Humans require connection to survive. I’ve been cut off before, I know how it feels. And now I feel like the coach of my team just died. I’m crying like the Eccentric Supportive Uncle of my teen years just died.

RIP Prince. Thanks for being there for me when I needed you. I’ll try to keep paying it forward.