Thank You and Goodnight

Leaving Las Vegas after my last live show of the reunion/Full Service tour, I thought that we could all use a break. I thought it would be a good thing to have some time away from the five guys from Boston. I thought my NKOTBFFs and I would benefit from taking a break from the craziness. I thought I could pack up the New Kids love and put it away. I thought I could go back to "real" life. I thought that the feelings would fade like they did in 1994. I thought I could let go and stop tweeting. I thought I could stop listening to Summertime, Cover Girl, Don't Give Up On Me, Call It What You Want, Put It On My Tab, Full Service, Close To You, Stare At You, Sexify My Love, Girls, Never Let You Go, Since You Walked Into My Life, and You Got The Flavor over and over again. I thought I could give all of the poor souls in my life who don't like New Kids a break from the mania.

I thought wrong.

The feelings...and craziness...are growing exponentially. Don't get me wrong, my wallet relishes the rest. But, my heart...my heart. I don't know if I ever loved them more than I do right now, today. They have brought so much to us this year and I don't know if there is a big enough way to thank them for it. How do you thank someone for bringing back your childhood? How do you thank someone for being your first "love"? How do you thank someone for giving you something to look forward to when most of the looking has been around at what we've lost this year? How do you thank someone for bringing old friends back into your life? How do you thank someone for the many new friends they've given you? How do you thank someone for all of the laughter, sometimes at their expense, that they've provided? How do you thank someone for letting you love them with all of the craziness and insanity that you posess? How do you thank someone for feeding that mania? How do you thank someone for giving so much, so much more than they will ever know, to you?

Maybe you just say, "thank you." Thank you, New Kids, for giving me an incredible year. Or maybe you say it in videos. Thank you, Donnie, for encouraging me to go wild. Maybe it's in a book. Thank you, Joe, for giving me the opportunity to give to someone in need. Maybe thank you is in a captioned TwitPic. Thank you, Jordan, for all of your facial expressions. Maybe you say it with each step on a treadmill. Thank you, Danny, for caring enough to remind me to stay healthy and take care of myself. Maybe it's in a chant. Thank you, Jon, because you truly are a freakin' pimp.

Maybe that's how you say it.

I say it with a party. I say it with friends gathered around the tv to watch the web cast of the Dallas concert. I say it with food and wine. I say it with time spent together enjoying what brought us together. I say it with every drop of love that I have for my NKOTBFFs. I say it with every moment that I get to spend with these amazing women. And I truly cannot say it enough.

We Got This

I'm sitting here in a mixture of exhaustion and emotion, trying to put all of my thoughts about this weekend together into something cohesive and comprehensible. Needless to say, it's pretty hard.

I got to experience the New Kids On The Block reunion one more time. In Vegas. The anticipation alone made it worth it. But, the show, it was incredible. The best concert I've ever seen. Ever. From the start, it looked like it was going to be fun. From the moment Jordan messed up the lyrics to Full Service, I knew we were in for a night of laughs. And laugh we did, right down to the last seconds of no one knowing who was singing what in Step By Step. The show was loose, fun, warm, and fantastic. It felt less like slick pop stars performing heavily rehearsed songs and choreography and more like brothers and sisters and cousins playing around at a family reunion. It was relaxed and happy with nothing to prove and nowhere else anyone would have rather been.

These guys never cease to amaze me. Joe with his smooth showmanship and unending personality. Jordan with his perfection and his cool. Danny with his strength, solidarity, and his breakdancing skills. Jon with his sweet shyness and exposed emotion. Donnie, oh Donnie, with his raw passion and heartbreaking charisma. Donnie stole my heart all over again.

Just over a year after they announced their reunion, here we are, at the end of the ride. What a sweet ride it has been. They gave us an amazing year. They gave us shows and fun nights out. They gave us new music and new friends. They gave us memories that will be cherished for the rest of our lives. They gave us peeks back into our youth and opened up our hearts to feeling young again. They gave us laughter and love to last forever.

I feel like I have been living in a pop culture bubble for the past fifteen months. There has been nothing relevant except for NKOTB. There have been no men but these five. There has been no music but New Kids On The Block, Hangin' Tough, Step By Step, Face The Music, and The Block (with a little Michael Jackson thrown in here and there). There have been no friends but the NKOTBFFs. Nothing else has mattered and that was fine with me.

But now it's time to let go a little more, to let go enough to release the grip completely and come back down to Earth. It's time to start listening to some new music. Or some old music. It's time to put the NKOTB videos back in their cases and back on the shelf. It's time to put that credit card away for actual emergencies...not the "I HAVE to go to another show" kind. It's time to reconnect with the non-NKOTB friends. It might even be time to start dating...or paying attention to your husband...again.

My love for the New Kids never faded and it was fun to find that out. It was touching to know that so many of us shared that love and that they still loved us in return. It's been a year full of love - youthful, warm, happy, sparkly love - and that love will always be there. Safely tucked away. Waiting. For whatever's next.

Step One: We Can Have Lots of Fun

Last night, as a kick off to the Irvine/Vegas countdown, five of us got together - me, my NKOTBFF, Nikki, Robin, and Davie. We got together to laugh, have some cocktails, watch the old videos, and enjoy each other's company. I don't think any of us expected to have so much fun. Who would have thought, all those years ago, that we would be back, hanging out with our girlfriends and obsessing over the New Kids On The Block all over again? This time with booze and dirty talk.

I know I have said quite a lot about how much fun this reunion ride has been for me. Well, last night just cemented it. I don't think we stopped laughing all night. Whether it was over what to put on a sign or what to say at the meet and greet or the horrible Boston dialects in the cartoon, we were rolling on the floor all night. We took LOLQuizzes and drunk dialed the New Kids. I'm not sure I've ever had as much fun as I did last night, sitting on my living room floor with my NKOTBFFs. Fun sure is cheap.

I think that's what has been the best part of this ride. Of course the concerts are great, but there's so much free fun to be had, too. It's so easy to get caught up in trying to go to as many shows as you can that it's also easy to forget how much fun it is before the show. It is so fun amping yourself up and just going crazy junior high style. It's fun to stay in on a Thursday night and watch old videos with your friends. In truth, those are the memories that are going to be with me forever, the times we were sitting on the living room floor, laughing until we cried.

I am so happy to have found four NKOTBFFs to share this ride with. Robin - the first fellow New Kids fan that I met as an adult, the one who I shared those first moments of the reunion with, the one who reminded me how to go crazy and that I had to. Davie - the quiet one who always has something brewing underneath. Nikki - the one person who might have a dirtier mind than I do. Lindsay - my enabler, my anchor, my NKOTBFF. How lucky am I to have these four women in my life for this ride? How cosmically planned must it have been for the five of us to come together the way we did? How grateful am I that we have all let go and are allowing ourselves to really have fun? I am so blessed.