| I became obsessed with Metallica during my senior year of high school. I love them and their music, so when my best friend Nora and I heard that they were coming to Freedom Hall on Feb. 2, 1997, we were soooo excited! We were gonna buy tickets, but they were giving them away on the radio, so we thought what the hell! We both tried and tried and to my surprise, I won tickets. I thought this couldn't possibly get any better. We had seats on the floor in the 19th row. We were high on life. Then one day I got a letter in the mail from the Metallica fan club of which I am a member. I ripped it open in the middle of the living room and started screaming. I had been randomly chosen by their computer to receive a backstage pass for the Feb. 2 show. Life was finally starting to get good, I thought. My dream was about to come true. Never in my wildest dreams did I think that another dream would come true on the same night as the concert though. I'm leaving out something important. I had never had a date at this point. I had never been kissed or even talked seriously on the phone to a boy. I was 18 and I thought that I was just out of luck. Nora, who also hadn't had a boyfriend, and I decided that when we moved out of our parents houses, we'd live together and get a bunch of cats. It sounds crazy, but we truly thought that that was the best we could do. Anyway, back to the story. I called Nora and it turns out that she got a backstage pass too. I was so glad that I wasn't gonna meet them alone and that my best friend was gonna be with me. To make a long story short, we went backstage and met 3 of the 4 members! They were all very nice and signed autographs for us and stuff. We took pictures, but most of them didn't come out. I was devastated, but luckily my husband and I met them again in Lexington in 2000 and the pictures did come out. I'm getting away from the story again. So we met them, and then we literally skipped to our seats for the concert. The only problem was, there was a cute guy sitting in one of our seats. We briefly argued over who had to tell him to move, and I lost. When I told him, he just moved over and smiled. There was an older woman sitting next to me then (between me and the cute guy) and she noticed the autographs on my shirt. I started babbling to this complete stranger, who sounded drunk by the way, about going backstage and she said that her son (the cute guy) had also gone backstage. (I later found out that she is German, and the slurring was just part of her accent. She wasn't drunk.)I also found out that they had won tickets off the radio too! The concert started a few minutes later and I headbanged and sang along like a crazy person and every now and then, I caught myself staring at the cute guy. The cool part was, that he was staring back. I thought, "why not?" because I mean, I didn't think I'd ever see him again. We stared through the whole concert until I got a massive headache. Who ever would have thought that 2 hours of headbanging and screaming combined with an awesome adrenaline rush would give you a headache? I sat down and put my head on the seat in front of me. I felt a hand on my shoulder and the cute guy asked me if I was ok. I melted. A complete stranger was concerned about my wellbeing. I said I was fine and continued to headbang and stare. At the end of the show, I was sooo disappointed. I thought that was the last time I would ever see him because he lived an hour and a half from Louisville, where I lived at the time. But, just before we got seperated in the crowd, he said that if I put my name and address in the pen pal section of the Metallica club magazine that he'd write to me. He told me his name was Dan and then he disappeared into the crowd. To make a very long story short, we started writing letters, then we started talking on the phone, then we started seeing each other as often as possible. During this whole time, he was slowly tearing down my protective wall that I'd built years ago. He taught me how to trust again, how to love, and most importantly, that even when something seems impossible, it's not. I never thought I'd get married, but on Feb. 2, 2000, exactly 3 years to the day we met, we got married in our metallica T-shirts(his black, mine white) by a minister dressed in denim overalls and a suit jacket. It was very small. It was just me and him and my parents and the minister in a small cabin in Gatlinburg. It broke my Catholic mother's heart, but that's the way we wanted to get married. Now, my sister's getting married in November, and my mom is soooo glad that I didn't have a big wedding. I wanted to tell you this story for two reasons. One reason is because I think it's a cool story, but the other is because it proves that great things happen even when you've given up hope. |
