An Open Letter to Harry Styles

Dear Harry,

I just want you to know that it's over between us. It's been a wonderful few years, darling, but our relationship can no longer continue. I can't deny the chemistry between us, but our relationship just isn't moving forward as I hoped it would.

First of all, you hardly know I exist. I mean, come on, honey. Couples are supposed to make time for each other. But as of yet, you haven't spent any time with me.

Second, you made so many promises that you haven't kept.

The first time I ever heard your voice, you told me that I was so beautiful that everyone else in the room could see it.

You told me I stole your heart and that every time we touched, you got this kinda rush.

You told me I was your kryptonite, your weakness.

You said you wanted me to be your last first kiss.

And you promised that you would always come back for me. You told me over and over again that we could make it if we tried.

But I think communication has been the biggest problem for us. I haven't gotten any of your phone calls or texts or emails or tweets. I never received the plane tickets you were going to send for our vacation in Spain or the ones for our rendezvous in Rio.

Do you know how much I've done for you? I've followed your career since the very beginning. I've watched every news clip and video about you, I've listened to every single song at least a hundred times, I've sent you countless Tweets reminding you that I was thinking of you.

You looked great when I saw you in Detroit last weekend, babe. I mean, I had hoped you would have invited me to your hotel or out to dinner. You could have at least waved to me in the crowd or dedicated a song to me. But you didn't even look my way.

I know I'm a bit older than you and I know I'm not as pretty and fit as some of the girls at your concerts, but I thought we had something special.

I guess I was wrong.

It's over, Harry. Don't try to convince me otherwise. Don't tell me anything you've told me before because I will no longer believe you when you say that I make you strong.

Remember when you told me that you were half a heart without me, half a man, half a blue sky? I believed you, Harry. I believed it when you said you were in L-O-V-E. And I might still believe you if you say I'm still the one.

I have to end this letter. It's killing me because I really want to say that it's over, but I'll give you one more chance, Harry. One more chance to get addicted to me. One more chance to make it right.

Is it too much to ask for something great?

Love,
Jen

Confessions of a Middle-Aged One Direction Groupie

Attention: People of the male persuasion may find the descriptions in this post disturbing.

It wasn't long ago that I was an old fuddy duddy, grudgingly watching Cody Simpson performing at the Capitol building in Lansing during Silvers Bells in the City. He was a punk who looked like he just turned 12 and he wore these ridiculous purple pants that sagged down to his thighs. The young girls in the audience were yelling, “I want to marry you, Cody!” I was yelling, “Pull your pants up, kid!”

I'm not sure what has transpired in the few short years since then. Maybe it was my girls' evolution into teenagers that fueled my passion for the “younger” music scene, but somewhere along the way, I fell in love. Not with Cody Simpson, you pervs. I fell in love with a much older, sophisticated group of boys: One Direction.

Oh, my heavens, I have 1D fever so bad, it hurts.

My girls introduced me to 1D that same year. I heard my daughter talking about the boys in 1D and, attempting to get in on the conversation, I asked, “Oh, which classroom is that?”

My daughter's eyes rolled so far back in her head that I'm sure she caught glimpses of her pubescent brain. “They don't go to our school, Mom! It's One Direction!” Soon I became acquainted with their first hit, “What Makes You Beautiful” and I. Was. Hooked.

Extremely catchy song, adorable boys from England and Ireland.

No going back.

It was over.

Stick a fork in me, I was done!

Since then I've been following them right along with my girls, fueled by an insatiable appetite for their music, their latest videos, their newest albums, and their adorable accents. Maybe this has something to do with the fact that I married into a British family, I don't know.

 

My girls tentatively accepted me as a “Directioner,” and they still think I get a little carried away sometimes, but since I'm willing to take them on road trips to see 1D in concert, they have little room to complain. Except when, during the concerts, I shriek, “Will you marry me, Harry?”

However, I am getting “older.” My constitution isn't what it once was. I'm not in great shape, not used to screaming at the top of my lungs, and my middle has expanded to make me look a bit like the Stay-Puft marshmallow man. These little quirks proved to be a hassle during our recent One Direction escapade.

 

For 1D's most recent concert in Detroit, the girls and I chose to stay overnight so that we wouldn't have to drive out of a grid-locked downtown Detroit after a late-night concert. I got a pretty good deal at the Renaissance Center Marriott, so we booked a room.

 

Here's one thing I learned: do NOT stay at the Renaissance Center unless you have trained for a triathlon and have a degree in physics. I'm sure the place is an engineering marvel, but I would personally like to strangle the architect with a pair of control-top, reinforced pantyhose. I'm pretty certain that we parked somewhere in Canada and dragged our luggage through all four towers until we finally found the elevators to our oddly-shaped room in the middle tower.

 

From now on, I think I'll opt to stay at a nice, rectangular-shaped building that has all its doors facing the parking lot, preferably one-story place; two stories, max. When you get to be my age, taking a swift-moving elevator to the 35^th floor tends to throw off your equilibrium. I staggered to our room, certainly turning a lovely shade of chartreuse, and immediately took some motion sickness medicine, hoping it would kick in before I had to take the elevator back down to go to the concert.

 

The girls and I got ready for the concert – they looked adorable in their 1D gear. However, in my skirt and 1D t-shirt, I looked a bit more like a black, white and red bowl of jello with a smattering of 1D insignia here and there, especially over the parts of me that tend to jiggle the most. However I did get a very nice compliment from a middle-aged, gold-toothed gentleman as we walked past him on the way to the concert: “Cute Mama.” Um, at that moment, I was extremely thankful that there were literally thousands of people walking to Ford Field along with us.

 

Speaking of walking, it was only eight blocks from our hotel to Ford Field, but again, being of slightly more portly stature than most 1D concert-goers, I found that by the time I reached the concert, I had a terrible rash on my thighs. About half-way through the concert, I felt my slip...slipping, so I ran to the bathroom where I discovered that it had indeed lost all of its elastic. What were my choices? I certainly didn't want to wad the thing up and stuff it into my purse. It was useless anyway and I didn't want to be seen carrying a piece of lingerie to the trash can, so I neatly deposited it into the other receptacle conveniently located in all women's bathrooms.

 

The concert itself was fabulous, despite the fact that an Amazon-sized woman deposited herself in front of me, and that buying water and pizza required a small business loan, and that every time I put my hands up in the air, I hit the girl next to me in the butt, and that at the end of the concert, I had such severe chatter in my ears that I sincerely thought I had gone partially deaf.

 

After the concert, we were all herded out like cattle, along with the Tigers fans who had “conveniently” exited Comerica Park at exactly the same time. When we finally reached our room at the luxurious Ren Center, we discovered that we had gotten neither the rollaway bed we had requested nor the refrigerator. The yogurt we had brought for breakfast spoiled, and my two teenage girls and I shared the king-sized bed, hoping for a peaceful night's sleep in preparation for the next day's activities.

 

What were the next day's activities? You may ask. Why, nothing but stalking staking out the hotels where the band might be staying. Our first tip was that they might be at the MGM Grand. We took the People Mover, a fun yet terrifying little contraption, which dropped us near the MGM Grand. We joined a small group of girls who had parked themselves on a small triangle of land facing the back side of the hotel where there were five or six tour buses parked. And we just sat. And watched. And nothing happened, except that my girls caught sight of Drake, who was also staying at the MGM and performing in Detroit, along with Lil Wayne. I have no idea who those people are; my heart belongs fully to 1D and partially to 5 Seconds of Summer, the opening band for 1D for the second year in a row.

So we spent the better part of the afternoon on a wild goose chase, following their scent, pursuing each Twitter clue, tracking each tip and chasing every group of screeching girls when they suddenly dropped everything and sped to a new location.

We finally ended at the Westin Book Cadillac, dehydrated and high on diesel exhaust fumes. We discovered that some of the One Direction crew was actually staying there and we all got our panties in a bundle when we saw them come out with their 1D backpacks and start loading up the tour buses. But sadly, we never saw Niall, Harry, Louis, Liam or Zayn. The hotel manager eventually came out and told us, in no uncertain terms, the stars were not staying at that hotel. We ultimately gave up, as it was late in the day and the boys were likely already over at the arena, preparing for the evening's concert, and I had to pick up my other kids from their weekend locations and make the hour and a half drive back to Lansing.

When we picked up my 2^nd daughter who stayed with a friend in Ypsilanti, she got into the van and told me, “Mom, you have lipstick on your teeth.”

My oldest daughter, who had been chasing and fangirling and shrieking and running with me all weekend, spoke up. “Oh, yeah Mom, that's been there all day.”

I'm so glad we didn't meet One Direction.

However, let me leave you with these photos. If there was no other reason for me to be a One Direction fan, these pics would still convince me:

 

Our 1D Summer

Today is a sad day. It's the end of summer. And this was not just any summer.

 This was the

 summer.

Yes, I'm a freak – a 43-year-old woman who adores One Direction. Their music is so fun and catchy, and the boys are all so stinkin' cute.  I like a lot of popular Christian music, but I haven't heard anything quite so upbeat from the Christian genre.

Last December, 1D was advertising their upcoming 2nd world tour.  I remember thinking how much I would love to take my girls to a concert.  I thought, "If only we had an extra $1000, then I could get tickets for them to see their favorite band."  Less than a week later, a $1000 check showed up on our doorstep!  Coincidence?  Maybe.  But I asked my husband if we could please use just a bit so my girls and I could go to a 1D concert.  When money had been tight for so long, it seemed a little silly to blow a small wad on something that seems frivolous, but I wanted to do something FUN with my girls after a couple of challenging summers. So it happened, (and no, we did not spend even close to the $1000 on concert tickets, FYI.  I just think that God is so awesome that He dropped the exact amount in our lap that I had been hoping for, even though it didn't take nearly that much to buy tickets).

The girls and I drove to Chicago and stayed with my best friend for a weekend full of the most fun I can remember. Aside from seeing the hottest band in the world, the girls and I also took a train by ourselves into downtown Chicago. We walked to Millenium Park and splashed in the fountain.  As we wandered around a bit, we would hear a rise in the noise from time to time and my girls' ears would perk up, and they would peer through the crowd to see if they might spot the 1D boys, on the extremely off chance that they might have slipped away from their very busy schedules to frolic in the windy city. No such luck.  We eventually got turned around so we caught a cab back to Union Station.  Being the dork that I am, I had no idea if it was kosher to sit in the front seat of a cab, so I smashed myself into the back seat with my girls and ended up on my teenager's lap!

At the concert, we had lawn seats (I told you I didn't spend the whole $1000!  If I had, we *might* have gotten a little closer....)  It didn't matter in the end - with binoculars and 12,000 other people, we danced and sang the night away with 1D.

We also caught the opening night of 1D's documentary-movie, “This is Us.” It was not nearly as exciting as seeing them in person in Chicago, but it was fun to do it with my girls.

As if that weren't enough excitement, two other events made this summer spectacular as well. On August 23, my nephew (and god-son) got married! August 24 was my parents' 50^th wedding anniversary, so my entire family stayed at the Radisson in Green Bay for a celebration-packed weekend.

My parents with my nephew and his new bride 

(disclaimer - this picture was taken by someone else and posted on my FB page, so I do not take credit for this photo.)

If I had to choose my favorite part of the summer, I might say it was the 1D events. Of course, the family wedding and anniversary were extraordinarily fun. But a girls' weekend in Chicago, complete with a 1D concert, cemented my relationships with them, and gave us some of those “time stands still” moments in my children's ridiculously fast childhoods. My oldest is starting high school. In the blink of an eye, she will be grown up. I only have 4 more years to call her my own, and then she will be her own person. Sure, we will still be able to go to concerts and have girls' weekends together, but it won't be the same.

Nothing will ever be quite as memorable as our 1D summer.