Tonight, We've got it going on.

So here I go being all fifteen again. I really thought by the age of thirty one that I would have handled this whole crush thing a lot better than I do.

Apparently not. All you need to say is one name and I am a total goner.

Nick.

Now, I would have thought that I would have somehow moved on, gotten over him and forgotten it all together. Considering I am married, I am pretty sure my husband wished this as well.

But alas, it appears as though I have not. Nick Carter still does it for me. I still ran to the computer back in December and waited until the moment that clock struck ten in the morning exactly, before logging on and searching for the tickets to the NKOTBSB show in DC in June. At the time it seemed like an eternity away. I still kept hitting back until I found the tickets that would get me as close as humanly possible. After all, I needed to be able to see his pores, the blue of his eyes. I needed it. Just as much as I needed air. I didn't give up until I had no other option, and got three rows back from the seated section. No, maybe not as close as we dream of. But its a hell of a lot better than the nosebleeds. Besides, who wanted to stand all night anyway? And I still counted down until this very night when they nine guys hit the stage. As if I was fifteen and in high school again.

There is no doubt I am the only one doing so. Whether they want to admit it or not. I know I do not stand alone in my boy band pride. The show is sold out and has been for months now.

But unlike so many shows in the past, I don't have my partner in crime to be fifteen with. My co partner who got married last week and while she is waiting to go on her honeymoon until later this month, thought that it was to early still to leave her husband. Afraid I was going to end up going on my own I convinced another friend she would just have to go with me, even if its for the enjoyment of having loads of amo to hold over my head for the next several years to come. Well that or it was she was going to be dragged to Kenny Chesney tomorrow, and since country and her never seemed to fit she picked the lesser of the two evils so to say.

She will have to be my co-partner in crime.
Though I fear she will have to be warned. If she hasn't already.

There is dif a little bit of a different vibe than it used to. I am no longer that fifteen year old girl who dreams of marrying Nick, I won't be wearing tube tops with his name across my chest, and the jeans that I made for their concert a decade ago. Instead there will be beer bottles and alcohol. There will be middle aged women swooning over their love for the NKoTB, whom my older sister followed. Ten years ago, you wouldn't catch a man coming ten feet within the arena they were even playing, now their will be husbands and wives, and boyfriends and girlfriends. And there will be daughters with their moms who were barely alive when I want it that way was a huge hit. They will make me feel old. There is no doubt about that one.

And yet, there will be ladies like myself, who are in our late twenties and early thirties, who followed them back then, and still follow them to this day. I am sure there are still a few out there that hold out hope that they will still marry Nick. How can they not? Even myself still dream of it. Though I know how unrealistic that is. Still, we hope. We dream. We still remember their every dance move, we will dance in the aisles, and in our seats and anywhere else they will allow it.

And pretend that for one more night.
We are still fifteen.
And anything is possible.

Death of my Teen Idol

I have a confession, yes another one. They seem to come frequent these days. But here it is.

Nick Carter was not my first love.

That title belongs to the man on the right. Johnathan Brandis. I would not consider this my first crush-that goes to a boy named Josh, he lived two blocks away from me. At ten I thought he was super cute. But once I got my first sights on Johnathan, it was all over. I am also pretty certain this was the beginning of my fascination and love with the blonde haired blue eyed pretty boys. But that's for another blog entry.

So yes Johnathan Brandis was my first love.

It started back in 1992. I was a twelve year old nerdy girl with freezy hair and an expander in my mouth. He a young actor getting his BIG break in the movie Ladybugs. He spoke, I think I cried. He laughed I sighed. It was your typical pre-teen fascination that soon turned into buying every magazine he was plastered on, spending hours rereading articles he was in until I had memorized every little detail, from his birthday to his favorite drink. I doodled his name surrounded by hearts and swore that someday, I was destined to meet him, and marry him. The room I shared with my sister turned into a JB shrine...

I was in love, ok maybe even a little of the obsessed kind but I was now thirteen, and so I think its only fitting that every female go through this with at least one celebrity.

By the time I was in high school Brandis was a known name. He had already done several movies, and was now on a TV show called SEAQUEST DSV. I'm probably not the only one to admit their main reason for being into the show was him. In fact I think the creators knew exactly what they were doing.And just as I had with the movies, I watched every Sunday night just so I could get a glimpse of the young actor...back then there was no DVR or TIVO and so I scheduled my activities around it, which wasn't all that hard to do since I didn't have that much of a social life. I would tape the show, and re-watched it over and over until the tapes were worn out. I bought the t-shirts, the character figurines. Anything I could get my hands on. Once again, can we say obsessed. Umm yeah.

The show lasted three years breaking my heart along with it.

After, he seemed to fade into the woodwork. Showing up here and there, but nothing major came out of it. He seemed to be just another one of those child actors that you hear about. You know the kind that make it big as a kid and then you never hear or see them again. That kind. Which was a shame, because back then I didn't think he was all that bad of an actor.I always hoped for a comeback of some sort. Who doesn't.

And I never stopped wondering when he would.

But seven years ago. On this very day. My questions were answered. I logged on to the internet to find that my teen idol, the very first guy I ever loved. Had killed himself. Hung himself more like it. Feeling the pressure of a failing career and never really making it to the kind of success that he wanted.

He was 27.

Once again my heart broke. No one wants to think that any one they loved, even if it was a never going to happen sort of thing would be that desperate enough that they felt they had no other way out. But most of time no one thinks that the famous are among the several who fight with the feelings of loneliness, of failure of being so down and out that they would even dream or imagine such an act. And yet it seems that behind the scenes of the rich and the famous, lies the underground secret. Life isn't easy. For anyone. Even to this day, I read about another young Hollywood star being admitted into another rehab center, or that their attempt in suicide had failed and think that nothing has changed much since that November day seven years ago. Even with all the attempts at making it more known, and more publicized it seems it has done little to address the issue of it.

And it makes me question everything about Hollywood. About the pressures that we as a society puts on these kids, and what really is considered a failure. Because I am pretty sure a successful stint on a popular TV show, and a couple of big movies does not mean you failed. Especially not at such a young age. Not when you have your whole life ahead of you.

But how do we get that out to them before its to late?

Before they become another falling star who left us far to soon.