I was not expecting this. At all.
Talk about traumatic turnarounds. I've seen too much. Way too much. *collapses dramatically on a couch*
It's just a game, but I was soooo involved and I was soooo pleased that things were going well, but then they were going too well and it was TOO MUCH.
Fffffff.
Gather 'round, friends, and spend a spare moment to listen to my little tale. I think it's high time and highly appropriate, chronologically speaking, for me to share with all who care to know just how it came to be that I lost my gorram mind.
And I don't regret it one bit.
I, along with about half the known world, had heard of a certain group of youths prior to the summer of 2013. Apart from a small shake of my head now and again, however, I remained largely unaffected, being at the time older than 13 and believing myself to be firmly outside the appropriate demographic for said club of goofs. My friend and I chuckled benignly and shook our heads with great dignity as her sister-also older than 13-slowly fell under the sway of this pack of cubs. We were on one side of a vast divide, it seemed, and she had made the leap to the other.
To indulge her dear sister, my partner in beardwagging went to see this gang of boys on the silver screen, expecting perhaps a laugh or two. She emerged a changed woman. She took the jump. I was among millions of mostly indifferents, but I was suddenly alone.
My friend, seeing my confusion, tried to help me along. She sent me a single rope with which to cross the gap. A music video called "Kiss You." I watched it and surprised myself by giggling. I enjoyed it and admitted it, but it wasn't enough. I wasn't going to cross so easily. I listened to her raptures and smiled appropriately; I cooed over interviews and asked questions, but I wasn't over the chasm. More like toeing up to edge and yelling across.
A few months had passed by this time, and I was torn between the two sides. Knowing little enough to appease the one hindered me in conversing with the other to the point of near insanity. All came to a head at the end of October.
I was going on a long road trip, and I needed something distracting. Personal stuff at the moment was making me a rather melancholic. More than usual, which is saying something when you are me. So the morning before we were leaving, I grabbed the rope. I downloaded the first video I had seen, "Kiss You". It had made me laugh, after all. Then I thought, *why not*, and also downloaded two other videos and this band of dudes' entire discography. It was going to be a long road trip, I told myself. Might as well immerse.
When I got off the bus at the end of the day, I was a changed woman. I had taken the leap. I was on the other side, and it was sparkling and bright, full of color and life and music. It was exactly what I needed that day. It's exactly what I need a lot of days.
On the fan side of the canyon, I discovered a boyband, and I realized that boybands are actually pretty great. They're sweetness and silliness and a light heart when the rest of your life is a lot of suck.
I won't say One Direction saved my life, because that's cliched, ridiculous and, as it happens, an exaggeration in my case. What's not an exaggeration is that they make it better.
I dove into the other side recklessly and without a smidgen of shame. I watched interviews and squealed loudly and long. I memorized albums. I analyzed vocal patterns to differentiate the boys and made a new blog to post their pictures. I read fanfiction. I bought concert tickets.
I was, and am, a complete and hopefully not completely obnoxious One Direction fan.
I regret nothing at all.
