So...we finally meet.
   
At the risk of sounding silly, of sounding obsessed and pathetic and all of those things I’m sure you don’t like in someone like me, I’ve waited for that for a really long time. Ever since that night when I heard you on Z100 back in May of ‘97...I don’t know. There’s been this part of me that I can’t control and that was so sure that if I could just get to you, if I could just make you hear me...that something would happen. What, I’m not sure. That you’d look in my eyes with those gifts from God you use to see and find in me a sliver of all the things I’ve found in you? That you’d give me one of those rare, genuine smiles you don’t seem to to throw out as often as you used to, some indication that you understood that I was different? That just because we saw each other, everything that had ever gone badly in my world wouldn’t matter, that everything would be beautiful because for one fraction of a second I was the only one whose hand you were holding?
   
I’m not sure exactly what I thought you’d do, but I do know, Taylor Hanson, that I had plans for myself. I wasn’t going to scream, that was for sure. Screaming never helped anybody. Neither did crying, so if I could help it I wasn’t going to do that, either. I was going to say something intelligent, I was going to make you laugh, I was going to memorize what you looked like up close and not waste my fifteen seconds like so many others.
   
Looking back, when I made those plans, listening to your cd on repeat and staring at the shadows on my ceiling long after everyone else in my house had succumbed to sleep, I don’t know that I ever really believed I’d get to carry them out. You are someone very far away, Taylor, and even though so much of your charm and beauty and appeal lies in your raw projection of normalcy and accessibility, there is a strange glass ozone on this little world that even after three years I have failed to break through. Maybe if I had connections with Ashley, or a filthy rich daddy or a mother who would pull me out of school in order to beat you to the venue, I would have expected the kind of luck that so many other girls seem to have. Maybe if I had any of the things that would make me think I deserved to be near you, when Tiana whispered, “Katie, that’s Taylor...” things would have happened in a way more fanfiction-esque. Maybe I would have been able to march up to that bus window, been able to interrupt the girl you were talking to, and been able to say something that would have made you fall for me.
   
But things didn’t happen that way. Instead, I pretty much froze. I didn’t scream, and I didn’t cry, but the words I pride myself on being able to employ failed me utterly. I stood there, freezing cold and big-eyed, while you flirted with the blond in front of me, then signed your autograph with a monarch’s courtesy and a half-smile and a touch of my hand that said, in a nutshell, “I can tell that this is a big thing for you, and I’m sorry that it’s not as big for me, but thank you.” And then you were gone.
   
So what went wrong? Why didn’t you whisk me off to finish the rest of the tour with you? How come I’m still not one of the elite, and how come you didn’t ask me what my name was? Tiana maintains that you have ADD and lacked the concentration to realize how perfect we are for each other, but after thinking about it I’ve come to my own conclusion: I wasn’t very high on your list of priorities. To you, I was just one more crazy girl standing in the pouring rain with a damp piece of paper and a pen. Sure, you appreciated me as one of a unit, as one of your fans, but Katie from New York who likes daisies and thinks Real World is scripted? She didn’t make any real difference either way.

And that’s okay.
   
Because when I woke up the next morning, H-day Plus One, my world was exactly the same as it was before we met. Seeing you, touching you, talking to you didn’t make things any better or worse: I still can’t get my locker to work right, I still hate my Lit teacher, I still have a family who loves me and a best friend I couldn’t live without. And somehow, the harsh shock of knowing that meeting me didn’t make any real impact on how your life goes is softened by knowing that meeting you didn’t change mine too much, either.

Who knows? Maybe someday we’ll meet in Pathmark and I’ll be able to keep my wits, and you’ll fall in love with me. Probably not. But whatever the future brings, Taylor Hanson...thank you for those nights spent listening and planning. I'm sorry I was too awestruck to tell you that in person.

Guest editorial by Katie