A Gift (Letter to a Fangirl)

Dear you

When you are nineteen, you will meet a boy.

Why am I telling you this?

Because life, despite all of its intricacies and nuances, is just a series of stories, and this is one of yours. Years later, probably, you’ll look back and think that you wish you had known memories were being made.

If you had known, you may think, you would have taken more photographs, laughed more, loved a little harder.

No. You could not have loved any harder.

But that’s how it began, and so that is how this begins.

When you are nineteen, you will meet a boy, and clichés are horrible, I know, but your life will change.

The boy you’ll meet will play guitar. He’ll write songs that could be about you, and sing them to sold out crowds of girls who feel the same. Mention his name to anybody and they’ll have a vague idea of who you mean.

“You’re just a fan”, they’ll say, and maybe you’ll laugh, because just a fan is such a contradiction. Nobody is just a fan. Everybody has their story, and they all weave together to create his story. It wouldn’t be the same without you.

You’ll meet him on a Thursday, in the summer. It wont be an accident, as such, but when you look back, you won’t remember ever meaning for it to happen. It was serendipity, sort of. Being in the same place, at the same time, and recognizing an energy in him that made you think “oh”. Just that. Just….oh. (Or maybe, for a second, it was just because he was pretty. You’ll never be quite certain).

And then you’ll get to know him, and he’ll lose that sheen of perfection, and become just someone-you-know. Someone who loves laughing, and music that is happy even if it isn’t good, and stories about people, and all the other things you never even register as important until they are what connects you to someone else, and then suddenly they are your most significant parts. When you share a favourite book, or are both in love with a place, you’ll be so thankful for these tiny-life-things, because it just gives you one more reason to talk to him. That is what it becomes about, in a way. Reasons to spend time.

There have been times before, of course, when you’ve wanted to know every single part of a person, but this time, you want to sit and talk with him until he learns every part of you, too. You want him to know all the things you share, and the bits you don’t, incase you teach him something new in those carefully composed sentences. In case maybe a part of him can exist just because you created it.

One day, he’ll sing a line from a song, and you’ll ask him who it’s by and fall in love. That’ll happen all the time. You’ll discover whole new worlds, just because he loves them, and you love him. Sometimes, you’ll end up more a part of these worlds than you ever were of his, and that’s ok. We take from every situation we find ourselves in. You don’t owe him for these moments and songs and smiles, but thank him.

You should thank him.

Thank him for the songs he sang that you downloaded and danced to for months. Thank him for the stories he told that made you want to tell stories yourself. Thank him for the words he wrote, in a room with sunshine, years before the two of you ever met. The song that was never supposed to save you, but then you found it. And it did.

Everything has a beginning, and so many things in your life, for such a long time, will lead back to him.

It’s a gift.

And in return, he’ll thank you for silly insignificant things all the time. “Thank you for coming….for singing along…”. He’ll really be saying just….thank you. For it all.

You’ll never be the only one. When you line up for the shows, set up camp at the backstage doors, even leave your messages of devotion online, others will see you, and notice, because they’ll be doing exactly the same. You’ll come together, because a fundamental part of most friendships is a common love, and nobody who hasnt been there will ever know. These people will become your every day.

Funny, isn’t it, how you didn’t even realize they were missing until they were there?

Have you ever thought about family and wished, if just for a second, that you had been allowed to choose? Now you can. These people will become your closet confidants. They will understand you. It’s a big world out there, and the chances of you being placed right next to the people who share a little part of your soul is so small. You have to seek them out. Once you start looking, it’s easy to find them. They’ll be right there, right where you are, because they’re looking for you too. They need you just as much as you need them. These people are so important. In so many ways, it is the best part of fandom.

Do you have any idea how lucky you are?

These are the people you will grow up with. By grow up, I don’t necessarily mean grow older, I mean become. Some of them may live in the next street, some you will never even meet. That doesn’t matter. They are all shaping you, and changing you, and when you look at them, months down the line, you will see a part of yourself, because you have shaped and changed them too. There are people on this planet who need you in order to become the best version of themselves. Just be. Take from eachother. A friendship that you choose is the most genuine kind.

He’ll show you the world, you know. Whether you follow him to the other side of the planet for a show you just can’t miss, or whether it happens years down the line, you will see New York, and London, and Sydney, and somehow it will be because of him.

You’ll live in different cities, and different countries, and in each place, you’ll meet people who have no idea of how you got there, and how you became the person they’re meeting. Sometimes, you won’t tell them, because it’s nice to be somebody new.

But most times you will.

It just happens, doesn’t it? Even a story about something that happened yesterday can begin with “once upon a time…”.

One day, inevitably, you’ll say goodbye, thinking that it is forever, because you haven’t learnt yet that nothing ever is. But you’ll see him again and again, of course you will. Maybe you’ll be in the front row at his first ‘new beginning’ show, or maybe dancing at the back, knowing that is this someone else’s dream now, but still unable to keep away. Your eyes will meet, because that is what eyes do when they know a person, and he’ll smile at you, probably. He won’t be surprised to see you, because hearts can know each other too, and he knew you’d come. You’ll watch him with more pride than you ever knew was possible, because you cannot imagine a world where he doesn’t do this, and where you aren’t there to watch it. You’ll know though, that is is different somehow. That this is not the same chapter, even if the story hasn’t changed. This time will come, and you will know that without ever deciding to, you are giving him away.

Years later, you’ll bump in to him. It was always going to happen, really. So much of who you have become was influenced by him, your paths were bound to cross as you marked out your way in the world. You’ll sit together and talk, just because there is still so much to say. He’ll tell you everything you have ever wanted to hear, and he’ll mean it.

It meant just as much to him.

And every time, it will feel like an ending, but you have learnt by now that some things never end. They just begin again.

Is it easier or harder to say goodbye, knowing that everything you ever hoped or imagined him to be is real? 

You’ll feel like giving up, sometimes. You’ll feel like you’re putting a hell of a lot of effort into a boy, or a girl, or a band, or even just a song, that will never love you back. What’s in it for you? You’ll wonder that a lot, and I can’t tell you, because everybody has their reasons. You have to discover them for yourself.

Ignore what everyone says about giving your heart to a rock star. It’s true, of course, that he’ll trample all over it and then leave it out on the pile with all of his other casualties, but what they probably won’t tell you is that he might just shape it first. Hearts break. And then they grow back together, and nothing is ever the same, but that’s fine.

It’s fine.

It was worth it. Of course it was. 

I promise you this:

You will be wonderful, and that, in part, will be because you let yourself love. You, and the words you wrote, and the things you said, about him and to him, will become a part of his history. The amazing thing though? They’ll also become a part of yours. 

When you feel like the only way for it to be is over, you’re wrong. When you feel like you’ll be happier if you just walk away, and give up, maybe you’re right, but you’ll never know if you do it. So don’t.

And when you feel like he, and everything that comes with being so devoted, is about to break you? Let him. 

The lows might be low, but when you’re in the front row, screaming his lyrics back at him? It doesn’t get much higher.

He’ll make you so happy. Sad too, of course, because this is not a movie, and he is so, so human, but happy is what you’ll remember when you tell this tale, years from now, to people you didn’t even know back then.

The story of a boy, who you somehow loved with all your heart, when maybe you didn’t really know him at all. A story of songs, and people, and moments. A story where the circumstances weren’t extraordinary, but you were.

Oh, you will tell it, because that is what stories are for. Because life, with all of it’s intricacies and nuances is just a series of things-to-tell, and this is one of your longest, and one of your favourites, and one of yours.

Originally published in September 2013.
Photo by Anthony DELANOIX on Unsplash