You won’t believe what I’m doing

 

🛼 The year was 1990, and I was 10 years old.
☀️ It was summertime in my tiny hometown of Silver City, New Mexico, and it was hot.
👧👧 I was playing outside with my best friend, Sierra, and our cheeks were flushed. We wanted to keep playing outside, but we were too hot to continue. As we walked to the house to cool off, I looked up at the sky and said out loud:

“I wish it would rain.” 

All of a sudden, a flash of lightning bolted through the sky, followed by a huge thunder clap, then dark clouds started rolling in fast, and I swear on my sister’s ashes, the sky opened up and it started to pour. The rain was coming down in sheets, what my family called the “Patrick River” started to flow, and our bare feet sloshed through mud as we squealed and made our way to shelter.

Now, it was a weird coincidence that it started pouring rain right after I said to the sky I wish it would rain. But this was monsoon season in New Mexico, and with that comes heavy rain out of nowhere, so it wasn’t that crazy.

But my 10-year-old brain thought differently.
As I watched the storm, a hypothesis started to form. Within minutes, I was devastated.

I took this coincidence to mean:

1. ✨ We all get one wish that is immediately granted.
2. 😭 I had wasted my one wish on a freaking rainstorm.

As tears started to tumble out of my eyes, I turned to my best friend, and I said:

“I can’t believe I didn’t use my one wish to have the New Kids on the Block play a concert in Silver City.” 

Yes, this was my big regret for months, which is forever to a 10-year-old. I was convinced that if I had said, “I wish the New Kids on the Block would play a concert in Silver City,” instead of, “I wish it would rain,” it would have 1000% happened.

Sierra and I LOVED the New Kids so much. We had all their cassette tapes, the big pins with their faces on them, posters, even a lunchbox. One of our favorite pastimes was making up dances to their music and performing them for anyone who would watch. We had written them letter after letter asking them to PLEASE play a concert in Silver City, NM. ***Nevermind Silver City had 9,000 people in the entire town.

Alas, I had apparently used my one and only instantly granted wish on a rainstorm. The New Kids never did play a concert in Silver City (shocking), or anywhere close enough for one of our parents to drive us (my mom did drive me and my friends to a Cranberries concert in a town two hours away when I was 13, though, and it was awesome. We even got to go to the mall first. It was a fancy day indeed).

So when I got this text from Sierra (who’s still my bestie) last year, it was ON!

It might be 3.5 decades later, but next month, we will dance to Jordan, Joey, John, Danny, and Donnie, FINALLY. It’s pure ridiculousness and I CANNOT wait. Also, it’s going to be so damn hot in Vegas that, ironically, I’m going to be looking up at the sky, wishing for rain as we make our way to the New Kids on the Block concert. Oh life, I love it when you give us little winks.

Before I meet Sierra in Vegas for the show, my partner and I are going on a road trip all around Oregon to explore, eat vegan food, see national parks, and do some hiking. Then I’ll fly to Vegas, meet up with Sierra, we’ll see the show, and then the two of us will continue our adventure in Zion National Park and the north rim of the Grand Canyon. After that, I’m flying to the Bay Area to see a bunch of my friends I haven’t seen for over 10 years. I am so excited for this trip.

I will be sending you some Love Letters over the next month, but not every week. Brittany might have a thing or two up her sleeve as well. 🙂

Have a fabulous June, my friend. I’m off to have some fun.

Molly

Update: We came, we danced, and I (kinda) got my wish!