How Clay Aiken changed my life

So....how did discovering Clay Aiken change my life? Pull up and chair and set a spell.

In the Spring of 2003, I discovered the Clay message boards. Never really knew that there were message boards in cyber-space before, I only frequented HGTV and thought their message boards were a unique feature to the website.

Well, I got an education. There are message boards out there for just about any interest in the entire world. Who would've known? So I started reading the message boards. I started to get to know some individual posters. We ended up meeting at my second Clay concert, the AI2 Tour in Philly. Color me surprised because I never even thought about meeting anyone on-line, let alone in real life. I met one poster, then another, then another, and so on, and so on, and so on.....you know the drill.

And imagine how I felt when I met several of my dearest friends through the message boards and we discovered that we all live within an hour of each other. Several of them live within 15 minutes of my house. These are ladies I never would have met otherwise. They are teachers, they are retired, they are cooks, they are VP's of their company. They are saleswomen and social workers and nurses and writers and students and businesswomen and lawyers. They are America and I met them on the internet. How cool.

We started hooking up to go to Clay Aiken concerts.

Let me explain what a Clay Aiken concert is. It's not just a concert, it's a happening, an experience, a good time. We get together before the concert to break bread, and assemble after the concert to drink spirits. And during the concert, there is this joy that radiates from Clay to us, and from us back to Clay. As an entertainer, he's a throw-back to old vaudeville days. He sings, he dances, he tells jokes, he banters with the audience. Oh, yes, he sings with this amazing voice that has the power to pull emotions from deep within: laughter, sorrow, pathos, reverence. And he does it by just opening his mouth and letting loose.

Clay Aiken performing several Elvis songs at a concert in Cary, NC in August 2005.



The incredible people I've met through the Clay Aiken message boards are precious to me. We fly all over the country to see not only Clay, but each other. We meet in between tours, we celebrate births and marriages, we support those going through divorces or the death of a loved one. We've made a cyber-community because we all had one thing in common....our love of Clay Aiken's voice, but it's our friendships that hold us together.

These friendships have taught me many things. They taught me how to use a computer, download video, write code in HTML, computer graphics, how to be a better, faster typist. They've opened my ears to different kinds of music and books and art. They taught me to listen without pre-judging someone by their looks, they taught me how to communicate my thoughts in an articulate manner, and how to disagree without disrespecting anyone. They taught me that age is just a number and how much fun it is to party with people much older and much younger than I am.

But most of all, they taught me how to have fun again. How to feel like a teenager again, how to let loose without worrying what anyone would think of me. My life has been enriched because of these relationships and I'm having the time of my life.

So thank you, Clay. Thank you for being you and for facilatating these friendships. They are incredible.



Thanks to Buzzietech for this amazing picture taken in Raleigh, NC, 08/06/2003

Related Tags:
Clay Aiken,
Philadelphia,
Raleigh,
Friendship,
Message Boards,
HGTV,
Vaudeville,
Computer Graphics