help me, joey mcintyre, you're my only hope

It's a rare quiet night. My kids are asleep, my late night run is finished, my house is clean, Mt. Laundry is still small enough to not feel guilty about ignoring, and any work I do would be optional. Sitting here playing Words with Friends and listening to New Kids on the Block seems like the most perfect thing I could be doing right now.

Except that the NKOTB are making me a little weepy.

Because hearing their music makes me suddenly feel 14 years old again, in the throws of adolescent awkwardness--Trying to figure out how to keep doing the "dance to the beat of my own drummer" thing I'd always naturally done and yet somehow still fit in with some perceived superior junior high social circle. At that age I thought the answer was...

Joey McIntyre.

Yup.

He was my first celebrity crush. And since my brain (then and now!) seemed to have only two settings: Uninterested or Utterly Obsessed, you can imagine the fervor with which I approached my crush. Let's just narrow it down to this: His poster hung on the ceiling over my  bed and every night after I'd talk to God, I'd talk to  Joey Joe. Oh, and crying. Lots of crying.

Somehow, I thought if he could just meet me, he'd fall in love with me (because we had EVERYTHING in common, according to Teen magazine), and he would be the answer to all my problems. No one could make fun of me or tell me I looked weird if I came to the Valentine's Dance with a New Kid. I would somehow be above the normal pains of teenage teasing and insecurity if I hung out backstage with Jordan, Jon, Donnie, and Danny (yeah...I did that from memory).

And you know what? The more things change, the more they stay the same...

Sometimes, I still think every fear, doubt, and insecurity could be made right if that certain guy would just take a liking to me the way I like him. Even at this age, even knowing what I do,even having gone through what I have-- there's part of me that wants to write weekly fan letters with Bonnie Belle Dr. Pepper lip gloss kiss marks at the bottom of them. Believing that if I just try hard enough, hold out long enough, chase the impossible, hey, you never know...

My Joey McIntyre crush ended with my 9th grade year, 1989, on the last day of school, slow dancing in a circle in the junior high gym with Jason S., who would become my summer boyfriend--a relationship highlighted by pushing one another up and down his street in a rolling office chair and kissing. Twice. He wasn't a New Kid on the Block, but he was a kid on the block. One who was there. Who liked me back.  And that ended up being enough. Maybe, I'd like to think, it would have been enough forever--if we'd been middle-aged and ready for that sort of thing. (p.s. Jason S., if you're reading this, I'm not asking for you back, this is metaphorical talk. Also, I see you regularly behind the counter at the airport but I don't know if you recognize me. ;) )

Then again, Joey McIntyre may just have been worth holding out for...

I guess the answers then, and now, come "step by step" and I just need to keep "hangin' tough" until that guy, popstar or otherwise, says, "please don't go girl."  Had enough yet? :)
Enjoy: