Listed under 8th grade is Heath Ledger. Today, via an exclamatory text message, I found out that he died. Now, I’m not actually delusional. I know that I didn’t actually know him. I know that my fourteen-year-old mind projected traits onto him that were possibly unlike his actual character. Still, I was surprised with how the news affected me. A part of me feels guilty for sadness I felt on confirming the news. Stories of death pass by me everyday. There’s the ongoing war, the Sudan, starvation, murder, accidents in cars, accidents falling through ice, falling off cliffs, and on and on. Do I cry over these people? Rarely. Do I write long-winded blogs about them to post on the internet? Not yet. But here I am, sitting in bed, feeling so bad for Heath Ledger’s baby, his lost promise, his exes who probably found out over the news, for my fourteen-year-old self. Looking closer, I see that my angst is less over Heath the man, but rather Heath the concept.
Middle school is perhaps the truest crisis in identity that anyone goes through. Whereas in college you’re trying to differentiate yourself from the rest of the world and in high school you’re simply trying to differentiate yourself from your parents, middle school is the opposite of differentiation. All you’re trying to do is look and act like everyone else so that you sit at the popular table, be asked out at the dance, and, if you keep your head low enough, no one will talk about you or write about you on the bathroom wall. I was no exception. I got the Jennifer Aniston haircut, shopped only at Old Navy, and said mean things behind people’s backs, all the while feeling uncomfortable and out of place, knowing that I wasn’t cut out for this.
It was during this time that I first saw 10 Things I Hate About You. I remember the day. It was hot outside and my mom and I went to see it at the cheap seats. To say the movie changed my life is rather melodramatic, but I can say that it dramatically changed my perception of self. Julia Stiles’ character Kat was smart, strong-willed, self-reliant, and eccentric. She was all of those things and, still, she got the boy. That boy was Heath Ledger.
The change was gradual, but after seeing the movie, I grew more resilient. My wardrobe changed as I changed. I got the haircuts that I wanted (I’m not saying that they were good haircuts, however). I stopped spending time trying to get mean Regina George-types to like me. Strangely, after that, they started liking me more. To say that I didn’t doubt myself would be an absolute lie, but I always knew that, no matter how different I felt, there would always be someone to serenade me with Can’t Take My Eyes Off of You during soccer practice (no one ever did).
I never forgot whom to thank with my inspired sense of self. My locker, like my room, was a tribute to Heath, created mainly out of black and white screen stills printed off of the internet and a couple of print ads from YM or Seventeen. When A Knight’s Tale hit theaters, I saw it at least three times, my heart ablaze with juvenile yearning. On a Super Singers trip to Six Flags, I rallied the other Ledger fans to bring his movies and the entire drive to Gurnee, Il was spent watching The Patriot, 10 Things, and Knight’s Tale, as we ate Heath Bars like they were the Eucharist. His picture was taped on the Van Galder bus window. I even kept this picture in my pocket as I rode on all of the roller coasters.
Like I said, I was fourteen. While I never stopped liking Heath, as the years passed, so did our imagined romance. Moulin Rouge came out and I left him for Ewan McGregor. Saved! came out and I left Ewan for Patrick Fugit. Real life came around and I started thinking about real boys. Still, thinking back on those Heath days are like thinking about a past relationship with a great boyfriend. He helps you grow, but one day you’ve found that you’ve drifted apart. When news of his success reaches your ears, your happy for him. He’s the one you look back on and can’t remember why exactly you broke up. I know that sounds pathetic and juvenile, but I was so lonely doubtful back then that I guess I was pathetic and juvenile. He was necessary.
How will the world remember Ledger in the next ten or twenty years? Will he be like James Dean or River Phoenix, remembered for their talent not yet fully fulfilled? Or will he be like the girl from Diff’rent Strokes, a mere blip on VH1’s I Love the 2000s? We’ll have to wait and see, but, rest assured, 10 Things will always remain in my top favorite movies and I will always watch A Knight’s Tale when it’s on TV. I could jokingly end with some “I wish I could quit you” remark, an attempt at reversing the sappyness of this post. I won’t though. Instead I’ll leave you the moment that I first fell in love.
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