THIS! EVERYONE DO THIS!

There's a blog I love, and Jenny, the woman who writes it, posted a link to a particular post on twitter today:

http://thebloggess.com/2010/05/the-traveling-red-dress/

"I want, just once, to wear a bright red, strapless ball gown with no apologies.  I want to be shocking, and vivid and wear a dress as intensely amazing as the person I so want to be.  And the more I thought about it the more I realized how often we deny ourselves that red dress and all the other capricious, ridiculous, overindulgent and silly things that we desperately want but never let ourselves have because they are simply “not sensible”.  Things like flying lessons, and ballet shoes, and breaking into spontaneous song, and building a train set, and crawling onto the roof just to see the stars better.  Things like cartwheels and learning how to box and painting encouraging words on your body to remind yourself that you’re worth it."

This next part is going to seem like a non-sequitur but it's not.

I love music. I always have. I believe that for every mood you're in, and for every situation you happen to find yourself in, there is a song that you can listen to, and it will make you feel better in some way. Whether that song cheers you up, or makes you cry or just lets you know that you are not the only person to be going through the situation that you're going through otherwise there wouldn't be a song about it, it will help you and make you feel just a little bit better, if only for a moment. And sometimes that's all we need, is to feel better just for a moment. And that is why I LOVE music so much. It's my outlet. When I'm pissed off, I listen to "My Life" by Billy Joel, or more recently, "Break" by Limp Bizkit. When I'm in a really good mood, I'll listen to "Our Song" by Taylor Swift or Journey's "Don't Stop Believin'." When I need to cry, I listen to Kenny Chesney's "Who You'd Be Today" because it reminds me of my brother, who died my senior year of high school. Listening to these songs is like listening to a part of my soul that I wouldn't know how to express otherwise.

I was born in 1983. So I was only 5 years old when New Kids On The Block came out with their most popular album, Hangin' Tough. Joey was my favorite (still is, actually), and he's the one that sang my favorite song, Please Don't Go Girl. Being only 5 years old, Please Don't Go Girl, as far as I can remember, was my first favorite real song. "Real" meaning it wasn't a nursery rhyme like Twinkle Twinkle Little Star or Mary Had a Little Lamb. It's the first song I remember wanting to listen to on repeat. I loved NKOTB, and so did my sister, who is older than me by 8 1/2 years. It's the only thing we had in common when I was little. And because she is so much older than me, she got to go to a couple concerts and I didn't. I was insanely jealous. I never did get to go to a concert because I was just too young. And then they split up. I accepted that I would never get to go to a NKOTB concert, and I found other music to love.

Then New Kids On The Block got back together in 2008 and did a reunion tour around the country. My husband, my 2 children, and I were living in Washington State at the time because my husband is in the Navy, so I started searching the internet for tickets to the November concert in Tacoma. I found 2nd row seats for a pretty reasonable price. Holy crap! Not only was I going to finally have my chance to go to a NKOTB concert, I was going to be in the 2nd row! When the guys came out on stage and Joey McIntyre, the first-ever-love-of-my-life, started singing the first line of "Single", my inner 5 year old started bouncing off the walls. And then he did it. He sang Please Don't Go Girl right in front of me. I was speechless. That was one of the best moments of my life.

Which is why I got a New Kids On The Block tattoo. I had gotten a musical tattoo before, just to have something that symbolized my love for music in general:

I love my musical heart, but it is just a picture that I found on the internet and edited slightly. I wanted something more personal. Lots of other New Kids fans were getting NK tattoos, and some of them were pretty cool. There were creepy ones too, like the girl who got all the New Kids' faces tattooed on her leg...

I didn't want something that was blatantly NKOTB related. I wanted mine to be more subtle, and I wanted it to be more personal. So I found the sheet music for my favorite NK song. 

It goes about 2/3 of the way around my arm, and it's the music for the first two lines of Please Don't Go Girl. (Please don't go girl. You would ruin my whole world. Tell me you'll stay. Never ever go away.) Is it crazy? Yeah, a little. But who cares? This is my bright red strapless ball gown, and I wear it with no apologies. People look at it and think it's the coolest thing ever, and then laugh a little when I tell them it's a New Kids On The Block song, but I don't care. Everyone has a favorite band and a favorite song from when they were young, and this is mine. It's the start of my passion for music, and now it will be with me always. 

And the best part? I got to show it to Joey. When NKOTB were touring with Backstreet Boys last year, they came to Chicago, and I splurged and got myself a meet & greet ticket. So before the concert, you get to meet the band and get your picture taken with them. I showed him my tattoo, and he said, "How far around does it go?" And he looked at the whole thing. Then he asked me which part of the song it was, so I told him it was the first two lines. So he followed the music on my arm with his finger while he hummed the song to me. It doesn't get much better than that.

So yeah, maybe it was a little overindulgent and silly for me to get a New Kids On The Block tattoo. But I think we all need a little silly in our lives. Who wants to be boring their whole life? Do something crazy every once in a while. Something other than cooking dinner, cleaning house, doing homework, and just being responsible in general. Because in the end, I'm not going to remember all those times I loaded the dishwasher, but I will remember that moment when Joey McIntyre hummed Please Don't Go Girl to me. And it was sooooo worth it.

So this year, while you're thinking of what your New Year's resolutions should be, make sure you throw something a little crazy in there too. You'll be glad you did.