Mrs Ronan Keating

I'm sorry, did you say "Yummy"?

Okay, this entry is not about the real Mrs Ronan Keating pictured here, because we all know she stole him away from me, that WRETCHED BITCH.

Also, before I begin my inspirational story, I would just like to point out that there are moments like this blog entry that I am so thankful I didn't put up my picture and my (real and official) personal details on this blogsite. This is all incriminating evidence that would totally kick me out of that "cool" circle I imagine to be the president of.

Anyhoots. I was 14 when I started my 2-year obsession with boyband Boyzone. By obsession here I don't mean the usual omg-boyzone-teenage-shrieking obsession. I mean like I was PSYCHO OBSESSED with them, I KNEW EVERYTHING about them, I stalked them, I knew their families' names and birthdays, what brand shampoos, toothpastes, the works. Kinda like how I am with my boyfriend. Cough.

Now, if you were a slave to the boyband mainstream like I was, you knew that if you shared this obsession with a group of like-minded psychopaths, there was absolutely NO WAY you could share "liking" the same band member. I loved Stephen Gately even though from the very beginning I knew he was gay (I love the gays), and I imagined long nights spent with him singing to me while I painted toenails. His. Sigh. (RIP, Stephen. MTBT.) Yes, that's right. MTBT. That was Stephen and my little secret handshake. Except it was on paper. We signed our names with MTBT all the time. (No, OKAY? I didn't IMAGINE the letters. He REALLY DID write to me.) Seriously, though. A moment of silence. *prays*

Anyway, my friend S at the time had already "liked" him first. So I was forced to like Ronan Keating. Haha. Forced. I'm not very hard to please. I easily fall in love. From the moment I was forced to like Ronan Keating, I liked him with all my 14-year-old heart. I did everything that was expected of me: subscriptions to magazines, MTV videos recorded on VHS tapes (from MTV India, no less, coz that was the only channel we got in Jeddah at the time!), scrap books of all kinds of pictures of Ronan, including ones that aren't of him, but that LOOKED like it was him.

Additionally, I had a huge poster of Ronan in my room that I would stare at all day, talking to him, re-playing in my head all the things that would happen when we met, all the things I would tell him, how funny and pretty he would think I was, how he would just fall in love with me, etc.

Did I mention psycho?

I BELIEVED that it would happen. I had NO DOUBT in my mind that I would meet him and all of that would happen. It was so clear in my head. I was 14.

The year I turned 15, I grew out of it. Haha I LIE. But I did think that maybe it wouldn't happen that he would fall in love with me as soon as we met. My hopes of Ronan dropping by Jeddah and seeing me by chance (who knew HOW that would've happened) were slowly dying. As it happened, I was also distracted with thoughts of college. I was starting uni later that year. However, I still thought of how I would act and what I would say when we met. WHEN. Not IF. WHEN. I still have my handwritten journals. *burns them*

I brought with me to university all my Boyzone albums. I listened to them the first few months of college. I forgot them quickly as soon as I realized that no one else in my university seemed to listen to them. Good bye fan club.

Second year university, I'd just gotten out of the shower when I heard on MTV Asia that Ronan Keating was in town. Okay, 2 things: yes, I am TOTALLY still into MTV. I don't care what anyone says. And yes, I still remember that day. It so happened that he was doing some album-signing at a record store at this mall near school. He was a solo artist by then.

Guess who was at the mall 4 hours before he was due to appear and start signing?

Guess who bought multiple copies of the CD, posters, cassette tapes, t-shirts, caps?

Hint: It wasn't my cousin Anna.

OH HELLZ YEAH IT WAS ME, BITCHES.

Now, here is the part that you will NEVER understand if you were never a fanboy, (or fangirl) especially of a boyband.

NEVER.

Seriously, stop reading now.

Coz let me tell you something. When Ronan came out from behind the curtains, and he started singing, and he was just THERE, I had tears running down my cheek. I wasn't even cheering, or yelling, or chanting his name, and I didn't even know the song he was singing, because I had stopped following him and all other boybands, even pop music in general. (Oh, puh-lease. I was in college. I had to do the whole indie scene.) But his presence, just HIM BEING SO REAL, and SO VERY CLOSE, and the fact that I could hear his voice not only through the speakers or the microphone, but FROM HIM, that's how close I was to him. I cried for a good 10 minutes, and I was so shocked I didn't move at all.

It's hard to imagine, but have you ever thought if any of your dreams came true?

One of mine really did. That wasn't even the end of it.

Eventually, I actually shook his hand. I spent one full minute with him. I took a picture. I stood next to him. He had his arm around my shoulder. I heard his voice, his accent, I even touched his hair.

No, I wasn't funny when I met him. No, he didn't fall in love with me. (ACTUALLY, HE DID, BUT THAT BITCH YVONNE...) In fact, I didn't say much. I just looked at him, how blue his eyes were, how not-so-tall he was, and I blushed a little bit, and I said: "This is amazing." He said "Thank you, it wouldn't be if it weren't for you" (which I heard him say to all the other fans).

Not exactly what I had imagined.

But it happened.

I had NO DOUBT IT WOULD HAPPEN. And it did.

I truly believe that when you have your mind set on something, that it would happen. The world and everything around you, and the energy around you, they all work together to make it happen.

***

I may be more cynical in person than anyone I know. Nothing impresses me much. But I retain that (childish?) ability to dream about something, and believe that it would happen. There is no doubt in my mind.

I've done it before.

TOM CRUISE CAN KISS MY ASS.