I can honestly say I’m pretty lucky to be a 90’s baby. Being in born in the mid-80’s my adolescence occupied all of the 90’s. My obsessions consisted of Hanson, Backstreet Boys, and *N SYNC. Oh yeah. Learning all the words to their songs, replaying music videos and TV guestings to learn their choreography, buying ridiculously overpriced sheet music to play their songs on the piano, hunting imports of their albums and singles, putting together binders and binders of magazine covers and clippings, and the list goes on..

I was your typical teenage girl a.k.a teenybopper. In my days, you were either strictly Backstreet Boys or strictly *N SYNC. I loved both. I was weird. Backstreet Boys was my obsession starting circa ’96 when “Get Down” came out and my friends and I danced to it for our school’s Talent Show. Come the summer of ’98, the Disney Channel featured this sorta-like Backstreet Boys group on their concert series, and I was hooked.

Whilst all my friends ooh-and-aah’d over Justin Timberlake, I dug JC Chasez. Super solid on JC Chasez, for sure. Being a broke teenager, I only made it to a total of two concerts of the same tour. One at UNLV in Las Vegas and the other at, the now gone, Universal Amphitheatre  (a.k.a. Gibson Amphitheatre) where I had pit seats in the ninth row! Two of the best nights a teen could possibly have.

Now fast forward 15 years. Following a 2.5 mile hike at the ever popular Griffith Park with my parents, we hit up the Home Depot on the way home. After having checked out, my dad had to run back in and get something he forgot. As my mom and I were standing by the registers for him to get back, I see some of the bluest eyes I’ve ever seen. Curiously my eyes went straight to the eyes, before even looking at his face. When my eyes naturally “zoomed out” I couldn’t believe who it was – JC Chasez.

Suddenly, I reverted back to a 12 year old and got ALL shy. If not for my mom’s coaxing, I might have chickened out and not approach him. But hand in hand with that, my mom was the typical mom of a teenager, and threw me under the bus about how obsessed I was with him and that he was really my favorite. Thanks, Mom! He was so sweet and super accommodating. I still can’t believe it took 15 years for that to happen, but even though I was gross and sweaty it really was special. Teenage dream come true.