Amanda Hocking

Tonight, I’ll be watching the Imaginarium of Dr. Parnassus for the first time, in which I’ll turn into a blubbering mass of sadness (I’m assuming, since I cry every time I see the preview), and then proceed to tweet/facebook obsessively about the tragic loss of Heath Ledger.

I’ve always been fascinated by death, not in a morbid Jeffrey Dahmer sorta way, but in a I-don’t-believe-its-possible way. There. I said it. I don’t think death is real. I don’t think I’ll ever die. It’s just not possible for me not to exist. It’s not.

This leads to confusion and excessive mourning when people do die because I don’t understand where they are. I don’t understand how its possible or what happens. They can’t not be here anymore. It doesn’t make sense.

This especially true with celebrities. I can still their face on the screen. They can’t be dead. See? There they are.

And I’ve been blessed with a life that’s been virtually death free. I’ve lost one uncle, whom I wasn’t very close to, and that’s it. All my grandparents are still alive. My parents, aunts, cousins, brother, friends, etc. All in good health (mostly).

So, its perhaps because of that, that Heath Ledger’s death has become the most traumatic event in my life. I did always enjoy him, but I can’t define what exactly made it so horrendous. Even when Layne Staley died when I was 17 and crazy obsessed with Alice in Chains, it didn’t effect me this harshly.

I’ve also always been a big River Phoenix fan. Well, not always. In fact, I’ve probably only enjoyed him since his death since I was 8 when he died. And in some strange obsession with that, I can’t watch movies where Joaquin Phoenix dies.

In fact, I prefer to watch films where nobody dies. That’s not true either. I like the Hills Have Eyes and Lost Boys and American Psycho very much.

Look – the thing is, I’m always constantly obsessing over my mortality. What it means. How it would be to live forever and how it would be die. I don’t want to die and I’m not particularly afraid to – I just don’t understand it.

I can’t explain why Heath Ledger’s death effected me so deeply. I know it’s crazy. I never met him. I have nothing to miss. Everything I’ve always known of him still exists in the exact same form I knew of it. For me, nothing has changed at all.

But it is what it is.

And I am aware that my three favorite films – The Dark Knight, My Own Private Idaho, and The Crow – all had young, rising stars that died before their release. I did not do this on purpose, but I can’t lie that didn’t effect my subconscious somehow.

I also really love John Hughes and Jim Henson, but in defense of them, I loved them before they died. And I love the Culkins, who are alive. So… I don’t only love dead things. I just mostly love dead things. That really puts the whole vampire thing in perspective.