Today, on my last day of class of my four year undergaduate degree, the same month I turned 24, I learned that My Chemical Romance has ended. This may not be big news to you and maybe it shouldn’t be to me – I had stopped listening to the band a few years back- but it still made me feel… something.
For me My Chemical Romance, who am I kidding- MCR, were huge. From about the age of 15 up to 18 they were it. I don’t even know what ‘it’ is. MCR represented so much to me and my group of friends at that time. I think I’ll never again have a group that felt as close and as necessary to my life as they did. We wore the black t-shirts and the nail varnish and for a school in rural Kerry I guess we felt a bit on the outside. The band may have had dark lyrics and coffin-loads of dramaticism but for me they were never about being sad or ‘emo’. To me they were fun and expressive. An excuse to grab some friends together and howl along to perfectly over the top lyrics for the hell of it – as we did on a particular youth group trip to Belgium. It was about feeling different but realising that that didn’t matter a bit.
I stopped listening to the band naturally as I got older. I guess I grew out of them. The black t-shirt girl started listening to Fleetwood Mac, going out socially and wearing colour. Right now I’m wearing five different colours of nailvarnish- but then the band also embraced colour in their later years. Being different as a teen seemed to be about wearing black. Now it’s about just doing what makes you happy, because after a while you realise everyone is different, but not everyone is as different to you as you’d imagined. Hence my current clown nails.
So My Chemical romance have ended, and I’m glad. Now they will always be mine, belonging to a special stage in my life and I don’t have to awkwardly facethat music in adulthood or explain why they aren’t on my ipod. Though for that matter, why aren’t they? Gerard Way’s end letter state’s ‘we were spectacular’, and you know what? For me and for so many others – they were.
Thanks for for providing the soundtrack to some difficult and amazing years, guys.
So long and goodnight.
So... 