Concerning Phantom on this Wednesday morning.

In December 2004, the Phantom of the Opera movie came out. My friend from middle school really wanted me to see it. My lovely mother took me at like 10 or 11 at night for some reason (I think because it was being taken out of theaters), and sat in the back of the theater while I sat with my friends in the front row. I was 12. The day was February 19, 2005. A day that every year since then has warranted some kind of celebration, or acknowledgement. I think I made a cake one year...

The movie begins in black and white. My 12 year old self didn't appreciate this, thank you very much. And then that damn title track began. I don't remember a specific point in the movie where my brain decided to have a meltdown and entirely change everything about my life forever, but it happened somewhere. I do remember the Phantom's unmasking, which admittedly made me jump. However, keep in mind that I was in the front row, and even horrible CGI face deformities are startling from that close up.

I do remember eating Ice Breakers Sours. Why I know this, is that because of smell/ memory connection, the smell of those stupid little nasty candies makes me think of that theater, that experience, and every Phantom feel. I've actually bought them in the past just to smell them. All of my movie tickets from that night on are saved in an Ice Breakers Sours container frm 2005. Well, some of them I decided to glue onto a piece of paper, which was a terrible idea, but that's besides the point.

I came home from that movie, and my initial reaction was to be the Phantom. One time this guy I dated in high school (who I only dated because of his beautiful Phantom Halloween costume because I seriously have problems) asked me if I loved the Phantom, or wanted to be the Phantom. I still don't think I know. But the fact remains, that that was my first reaction, and my sweet mother indulged my crazy and gave me her black gloves to play with. It was a dark night for me. February 19, 2005...

The next day I began a binder to fill with Phantom related items. With my brief experience the best I could muster was getting my mom to let me print pictures of Gerard Butler and Emmy Rossum from the internet. But I needed more, it was a drug. The movie had stopped playing in my hometown, but was still playing in Oxnard. Again, bless my mom's heart, she indulged the crazy. She drove me out to Oxnard to see the movie. The movie reel had problems and kept skipping, so they gave us a free ticket to see it again. The madness consumed me.

Then came finding the soundtrack, novel, and renting other versions from the library. I was 12 and my mom had to deal with me singing, "What sweet seduction lies before us!" and then trying to explain was seduction meant. I read the novel, covered my school binder with extremely suggestive pictures from "The Point of No Return" scene, and further accepted the crazy.

I remember the first time the real extent of obsession was made known to me. We had a long-term sub in my 7th grade History class, and the lady who replaced her was named Ms. Gerbert. (I think.) She saw the pictures on my binder and made a comment about how she loved the show/movie/whatever and I was so angry. You know, the crazy fangirl "I LOVE HIM MORE THAN YOU COULD EVER HOPE TO YOU STUPID POSER." Again, I seriously have had problems.

I also remember one particularly hilarious conversation with my mom, (hilarious looking back on it I mean) where I said something along the lines of "The Phantom's the bad guy, everyone loves Raoul. I feel bad for the Phantom, and he's way sexier. I'm cool and awesome and unique because I like the bad guy which no one has ever done before." Like I said, hilarious.

My hope in being unique was soon crushed when I realized that everyone loved the Phantom, (who by now I called Erik) and no one really gave a crap about Raoul. My crushed hope turned into a life mission of systematically taking down everyone who dared utter a word about my soul-mate, and simultaneously making myself the supreme overlord of all Phantom related knowledge. One such tactic being to never refer to Erik as "The Phantom", only by his name, which only I knew.

The only thing I can really chalk this insanity up to is having a balls homelife. It was around this exact same time that my Dad lost his job due to disability, and was in turn home 24/7 to make my life hell. I started self-harming, and thought about committing suicide once or twice. In some cliche way, this story saved me. Erik had it way worse than me, ("Poor, unhappy Erik!") and he was comforting. I wrote fanfictions with a Mary-Sue named Anna which had very graphic sex scenes in them.

And again my mom, bless her soul, indulged me in every way. I think she knew that it helped me. She gave me Christmas presents signed from "Erik" to "My Anna" that contained things like a boxed set of C.D.s of classical composer's most popular works. One time she burned the edges of a letter and wrote something like "You light up the darkness of my cold dark lair." And another time, gave me a massive Valentine's Day card that played "Fur Elise" when you opened it, signed "From Erik". My mom wins everything.

So stuff like this continued on through my life. The only real problem it caused was that aforementioned thing about dating a guy because of his homemade plaster cast mask and velvet-lined cape. That experience can be chalked up to these words of wisdom: Do not date someone who is as obsessed with something as you are, because it just isn't healthy.

I saw the show for the first time in 2009, and met John Cudia. Amazing. I saw it again in 2010, coercing a friend into taking me even though we had entirely different seats. On the way back, the love of my life informed me that he had started dating someone at his new college, which I won't get into right now. The point of this is, that at this point the whole concept of Phantom was extremely comforting for home problems, as well as being lonely. From 12 on, every time I went through a breakup, (that wasn't my doing), the Phantom thing spun out of control. I imagined him there in the rafters at my choir concerts. I imagined him as this friend who was there when things were unpleasant.

Unfortunately, instead of turning to Phantom in this time of actual crisis, I tried another approach, called dating a "clean-cut LDS boy". I guess being told that kind of news while coming back from the show kind of made for a bad combination. Don't get me wrong, Phantom never left during that time, but I did try to hide a little of my crazy for this guy.

I'm going to omit the whole next year or so for the sake of writing another post which would be my incredibly convoluted love story with the man I'm going to marry.

So, now we're in the summer of 2012. It was a Phantom filled first half of the year. I went through a breakup which kick started another very long and intense Phantom episode, where I wrote fanfiction again and got into the Tumblr fandom. And then I found out Phantom Vegas was ending in September, so I made it my life goal to go see it. Due to persistence and a lot of help from my soon-to-be stepfather, I went with my Mom. I was happily in a relationship at that time, but the transformation of the theater still made me cry.

Since then, Phantom has kind of taken a hiatus. I'm still insane, and it still holds a massive part of my life, heart, and college major, but it's not the most important thing anymore. I don't need it to be happy. (The song "First Day of My Life" just started playing on Pandora and I'm going to tear up because of the irony.) I've found my steady source of happiness. I have this beautiful, real person in my life, who I can't say always understands me, but tries harder than anyone else ever has. Those dark moments aren't filled with self-pity, but with a man trying to make them brighter.

I love Erik, but I don't need him anymore. And I think he'd like that. To Holly, he was always a comforting friend. And all friends want their friends to be happy. So, I'll conclude with this.

Erik,
Thank you for being there for me when I needed you the most. Thank you for sparking classical music and opera in my life, and thank you for completely designing me as person. I wouldn't be who I am now without your influence throughout the years. I'm just writing to let you know, that as much as you've helped me, I don't need you anymore. I have someone else. Someone more stable, who isn't a crazed lunatic murderer. Don't worry though, I've never held those things against you. I'm going to be starting a family soon, and although your books, movies, and Broadway memorabilia will always be on my shelves, your consuming presence in my mind will not be. I hope you understand. I found my Christine, and he isn't running away. Oh, too harsh? Sorry.

I remain your obedient friend,
H.H.