musings from the road: I See You, You See Me

On a plane somewhere between Nashville and Chicago: I'm headed back to Omaha for my 20th year high school reunion (which sounds really old, though somedays I still feel like I'm in still high school). Recently, I've been doing a slow jog down memory lane in preparations for the festivities and couldn't help but think of a huge part of my high school formative years:

New Kids On The Block.

It was 24 years ago when I attended my first New Kids concert. I was second row, along with my best friend and our parents. Although I had attended my first concert ever three years prior to that (hey hey), there was something different with this experience. One difference, being that the members of this group were much closer to my age (no one explained to me that watching reruns of The Monkees on MTV meant they were actually 20 years older when they went on their reunion tour).

Another major difference was the sound level in the room. Sure, I screamed for Davy and his 80s mullet, but my screams blended with my parents’ generation who had taken their kids to the shows and honestly, weren’t much of the screaming crowd. Here in 1989, the Devaney Center in Lincoln, NE, which holds roughly 20,000 people, approximately 19,000 of them were pre-teen, high-pitched girls, in the midst of puberty. (The other 1,000 were the chaperons of those girls.) The sound level of the screams alone most likely broke any of the noise restrictions in the venues they played. But you try tell a 14 year old girl not to lose her mind when Jordan’s perfectly groomed chest peeks out from behind a white button-down shirt that just happens to have blown open… from a gigantic oversized fan, carried night to night on their tour.

The feeling I remember most from that night… and the next time I saw in Omaha… and the time after that in Kansas City… and Des Moines… and Boston… (you catch my drift) is the feeling of wanting to be seen. I stood on tip toes in 1989, holding the sign I meticulously made weeks prior to the show, craning my neck and sending out penetrating mental stares so that one of them – any of them – would somehow would see me in a sea of bangs and braces and, simply, see me.

At the time, I didn’t have the tools to really analyze what that meant on a deeper level other than wanting to have someone famous (and sooooo cute!) look my way. But looking back now, I understand that it was the common goal that all of us share: to be seen on a deeper level. To be set a part from the crowd. To be acknowledged. To be known and confirmed as someone of worth and value.

I took that feeling and ran with it. As I explained in an earlier blog, I figured out a way to be a part of the show instead of just a mere attendee of the show. After years of college education and radio internships and hawking pore strips and condoms (a girl’s gotta start somewhere), I made my way into the music industry and am now known by some of my musical heroes.

Yet even when I attended the first reunion tour (five years ago) of the band that got all of these feelings started, despite my credentials and connections (which allowed me to meet them), I still felt that sense of simply being another nameless face in the crowd.

Last week, New Kids were back and so was I. The heightened physical energy I can literally feel in my body when I am in that environment, years later, still amazes me. I don’t get moved by music or bands as much anymore, so the fact that I can feel my heart race as they walk into a barren hallway to do a meet & greet reminds me that there is still passion within me.

After my brief moment of meeting them and taking a quick picture with just me and just them – which I have dreamed of having for 24 years, mind you – I had exchanged my m&g pass for a working pass and was hanging out with friends on the tour. As my idols floated in and out of the production office, I realized I was seeing them and they were seeing me. It was happening, just as I had pined for all those years ago.

During the show, I stood in the pit in front of the center stage and looked up at the men whose simple recognition I once believed would give me worth. But then a shift happened. I'm not sure exactly why or how -- maybe it was the fact that we're both working in the music industry and we're more peers in this transient lifestyle. Or maybe it was assessing this crazy crash course I've been on before reuniting with some people I haven't spoken to in 20 years. But for that moment, I was able to step out of my 38 year old body and gently talk to my 14-year-old self:

Being seen by them (though still f*ing awesome!)

doesn't confirm your self worth. You being true to yourself

and helping others and following your dreams

and living passionately and imperfectly –

THAT is what makes others see you.

We all want to be seen & we're all simply trying

to live our lives fully and be the best we can be...

whether we’re at a reunion or on the stage or in the second row.

I spent the rest of the night simply enjoying the concert, losing myself to the music and singing at the top of my lungs, and for the first time, not worrying if they saw me or not because I now know that I am seen. Not because of them or anyone else, but because I am living my true, authentic self.