Looking Back

This post is for my" brother" Drew Papillion. Drew is like a brother to me. He teases me like my brothers do. Drew is a swell guy, He's a good friend of my brother Dan. I've had my iPod on shuffle the last few days and it brought me back to my good old days of my teenage years. I was one of those teeny bopper girls whose wall was plastered with posters of the boy bands. First it was Hanson,(who by the way is still around, thank you), then *NSYNC, The Backstreet Boys, O-Town and then my favorite, PLUSONE. I saw them 3x in concert. They were the "Christian" version of the boy band. I loved them. Its sad that one of them ended up in alcohol rehab, and one broke away from the group because the band was steering toward more a "worldly" sound. I still in fact have some VHS of all of these bands,(DVDs didn't exists then-till later when PLUSONE came out) some days I will admit I do like to pop them in and remember those days, its not often that I do that, but I like to keep them because someday I want to show my daughter what bands were so cool when I was her age.
Drew and I first met and "hung out" at a PLUSONE concert. Drew was dating Amy at the time and he and Amy took me, Naomi H, Kristina H., Andrea H., Me and Lars(to keep Drew company I think). I was like 14 or 15. And PLUSONE was at the State Fair, Naomi was a fan too. That concert was incredible. It is still clear as crystal in my mind. We had good seats. I screamed my little head off, Drew and Amy just laughed and laughed at me, I think I even had tears running down my face, I was so pumped. This was the time also that Pastor and Amy DeBurgh had just started at RBC. They were there too, not to see Plusone, but to see the band before them. They watched me too. But I didn't care, I was having the time of my life. I am convinced that that at least one band member pointed to me during one of the songs. Thanks Drew for putting up with me. That was a great night.
I was always a *Nsync fan too, taped every talk show they were on, went out and got their CDs the day they came out, saw them in concert once, and of course the Backstreet Boys, they are still around too by the way-most of them in their late 30s, They came out with a new CD recently, Not gonna lie, went out and bought it, they still make me smile and my heart still skips a beat at times.
All this to say, These boy bands used to consume my life, my thinking, basically everything, I even dreamed that I would marry one of the Plusone boys b/c they were of course Christian so my dad would approve, and b/c one of the band members and I share a birthday; so obviously we were meant to be together. But as I got older and grew in my relationship with the Lord, and under the guidance of my amazing youth leaders I knew it got to be to much. One by one the posters came down, the BOP magazine subscription stopped, the internet searches stopped, and I realized that it wasn't important anymore. Instead of desiring to know more about these boys I desired things of the Lord, and pursued realistic relationships with others in the youth group, and youth leaders.
So no more posters except for one, on the inside of my closet door.:). Thanks for walking down memory lane with me.