When I was in 7th grade, I became obsessed with the Beatles. For my 8th grade graduation gift, my mom took me and two friends to see the Beatles at Shea Stadium in Chicago. It’s good for bragging rights, and it’s good to show how wonderful my mom was, but, frankly, it was the worst concert I ever went to…..because the girls in the stadium wouldn’t stop screaming. I heard one note, the entire time. They were performing Twist and Shout, and, somehow, those stadium shriekers all took a breath at the same time. I heard one note! It was terribly off key because, back then, the Beatles didn’t have the expensive sound equipment that would have allowed them to hear each other. Still, I stayed a faithful fan. I bought each of their records. I even pre-ordered some. I mean, was there ever such a sure thing as a new Beatle album? They were filled with ‘A’ side hits, both sides!

By the time I married Larry, I still loved the Beatles. I even told Larry that it had to be in our marriage contract that, should Paul ever come for me, I’d be going with him, and Larry better know it. He was my marital exclusion! Larry took it good naturedly. Over the years, he told me that he always looked at the flight manifest to make sure Sir Paul wasn’t on his plane. I could just SEE him finally showing up on the plane. I’d be on it, too, and Larry would make a big thing of it, totally embarrassing me….but Paul never came  for me.

Meanwhile, I believe it was the year I graduated from high school that he married his wife, Linda. They had a long marriage. It was a happy one that lasted, against all odds. Then came the day when she died of cancer. I was still happily married. By that time, I knew that Paul and I were at opposite sides of many things and would never match up, but it was still fun to think about it. Paul then married Heather Mills. It was a bad marriage that ended ugly. Meanwhile, Larry and I soared along.

Then, in July of 2010, Larry died of cancer. In 2011, Paul married his new wife, Nancy, who, now, is 58. Funny: when I first fell for Paul, he was 23 and I was 14, clearly too young for him. Now, at 66, I guess I’m too old for him, even though he is now 75. That’s how it is when you are famous with money. They are doing well, though. She is wealthy on her own, so they have a level playing field.

A few years ago, a Russian friend invited me to go see Paul McCartney with him in Lubbock, TX, home of Buddy Holly (who’d inspired Paul greatly.) I was so excited! I bought airline tickets and was ready to go, but Paul canceled our ‘date.’ He’d been ill. So I went out to Lubbock, visited my friend and his family and saw the Buddy Holly museum.  It was very nice, but still…..  Paul stood me up. Would Paul and I ever meet up? Signs were pointing to no….

But, all along, God was smiling. He knew, from the very beginning, with each twist and turn, how it would play out, for you see, in a twist of fate, this time, Paul is coming to ME! He is playing in Duluth, Georgia! (The mail service says my address is in Duluth, not Johns Creek.) After all these years, after my mom driving my friends and I up to Chicago, after buying an airline ticket to Lubbock, Texas, Paul is giving a concert FIFTEEN MINUTES AWAY FROM ME! This time I’m ready. My oldest child, my daughter, is coming with me. I have VIP tickets. I never go to concerts, but this one is important to me. It’s been so long in the making. It’s just time. It’s fate. It’s kismet. Call it what you will. I am finally going to see Paul McCartney perform…and hear him, too. Both he and I are medicare age now, but that’s okay. I need to see him before either one of us dies and it becomes impossible. He needs to know that I release him from my marital contract….that he has no idea I have. You know, it seems so strange to me that I have known him since 1964. I know all about his childhood, his time in Germany, his being left-handed. I know all about his kids, his wives, his ex-wife…..and yet, he knows nothing at all about me. How can that be? How can he not even identify me? I know way too much about him and he knows way too little about me.

None of that will change on July 13th but I will have fulfilled a dream that started when I was thirteen years old. On Valentine’s Day that year, I took my babysitting money I earned and had my mom take me to KMart where I bought the first Beatles album released in America: Meet the Beatles. Yeah, Paul and I go WAY BACK…but only one of us knows it. It’s unrequited love at its best. I consider him to be the best musician of the 20th and, so far, the 21st Century, so seeing him live in concert will be so historic…but, in my heart, it means even more. It is the formal completion of a very important chapter in my life.

Around 2011, I wrote a story about all of this, and our meeting at a concert. Being the author, I could do whatever I wanted to in the story…so, in my story, I wrote to Paul and told him this tale, and he then wrote me back, sent me a backstage pass and tickets to his show, plus invited me out to dinner afterwards, like the old friends I felt like we were! I sent my story in to Faithwriters and created a bit of a stir with the judges. They wanted to know if the story was true. I told them I wished, but that I had taken artistic license.

Will I get to shake his hand? Will I get to have him sign something? I don’t know, but I hope that, if I do, I will have it together. I remember, many years ago, my mom met Jimmy Dean, the singer (and also of sausage fame). All she could do is gaze up at him with her mouth open. I have the photo to prove it! She was simply speechless.  Would I be like Ralphie in A Christmas Story and finally eek out, “Yes, a football”?

You know what I’ve decided? I’ve invested fifty-two years on this relationship, and it has been decidedly one-sided. If he doesn’t at least properly greet me by my name, well, then, IT’S OVER!