#hs17

I’m sure other people have already said much better and more eloquent things about this but I really just want to take a moment to say how much Harry singing What Makes You Beautiful at his first concert of his tour in the US means to me.

For so long, all of the media have been going on and on about how One Direction is over and how Harry wants to move on and put that far behind him.  Everyone, even fans--Harry’s as well as the other boys’--and some of the most dedicated ot4 stans have been saying that Harry is so over 1D and will never go back.  How a 1D reunion will never happen because Harry’s done with it and wants to be seen as a “real” artist and not a boyband singer.  For so long, that’s the message that’s been broadcast through almost every source and outlet.  That even if the other boys want a 1D reunion, it won’t happen because Harry’s heart isn’t in it and he would never want that.

Everyone’s been talking about how he’s trying to “break free” of and “shed” his boyband roots and image and “put as much distance as possible” between himself and One Direction.  How he wants to leave that in the past.  That’s been the dialogue for so long now, that I found myself really really struggling to not believe it.  It was so omnipresent that having and expressing another differing opinion was almost impossible. 

I guess for me, One Direction means so so much to me, not just as individuals--I love all of my boys so much and I fully love and support them each on their own and in their solo pursuits and careers--but as a band, a family.  I think the thing that drew me to One Direction so strongly was their friendship and their relationship with each other.  How they were more than just a band of four--five--boys, more even than just best friends, they really and truly were a family.  They loved and supported each other so much and so freely and so dearly.  It was their love for each other I think that is what made them so deeply embedded in my heart.  Yes, of course I loved their music, I thought they were all hilarious and adorable and sweet and kind and silly and wonderful, I loved them all as individuals.  But it was the way the fit so seamlessly together, the way they were so clearly meant to be together, the way they became a family that truly resonated with me the most deeply.

As someone who does not have a particularly loving or supportive family, and who has struggled to feel like I belonged anywhere, seeing these boys, who had never even met before, fall together and love and accept and support and trust and protect and care for each other and become a family...it gave me hope.  It gave me hope that happiness and love and friendship and families really do exist. You don’t have to share a name or blood in order to be family.  Your true family are the people who find and love you for who you are unconditionally and no matter what.  And even if those people aren’t the ones you are tied to by blood or lineage or name, you can still have a family where you belong.  You can still find love and support and acceptance and happiness.  And maybe one day I could find my own family.

For me, One Direction was hope--and proof--that love and happiness and friendship and family really do exist and maybe one day I could find that for myself.  Even if I didn’t have a family like that, even if I didn’t have friends like that, even if I was so lonely and so sad and so hurt, even if my world would never be full of light and love, even if I knew that no one could ever possibly love someone like me, even if I knew that I didn’t deserve to be loved like that let alone to be happy, even if I knew that I was a worthless human being, even if most days I didn’t even want to be alive, there was still a tiny flicker of hope inside me.  Because this band, these boys, were proof that it really did exist, it really could happen.  And maybe, just maybe, if I kept holding on, it might someday happen to me.

And I know I’ve gotten really side-tracked and off topic here, but I can’t find the words to fully express what these boys meant--mean--to me and why.  And I don’t think I ever will be able to fully explain how much they mean to me, and how much they have done for me.  But that’s okay.  I know.  

But to get back to the point I was actually trying to make, having Harry sing What Makes You Beautiful at his solo concert means the world to me.  It brings back all of that hope and happiness and light.  Because Harry loves One Direction.  He loves his boys.  He loves them.  No matter what the media say, no matter what people on tumblr say, no matter what anyone says.  He loves them.

Also, the fact that he sang WMYB, and not just another One Direction song, a later one that he and the other boys actually wrote themselves, means so much.  What Makes You Beautiful is the One Direction song.  It is the song that everyone automatically thinks of and associates with One Direction.  No matter how many years, and songs, and albums later, What Makes You Beautiful is still the most globally known and ubiquitously One Direction song.  And to have Harry choose to sing that--the very first and most infamous One Direction song--at his solo concert says so much and means the world to me.  For years the boys have been trying to prove to the world that they have more (and “better”) songs than WMYB, that they are legitimate and talented artists and have progressed well beyond pre-teen/teenage boyband bubblegum pop love songs, that they are not just a silly boyband for teenage girls.  To have Harry knowingly and willingly tie himself back to the One Direction song even when he is in the midst of a prominent and successful solo career where he could easily shake the boyband image and label once and for all, means more to me than I can say.  

To all of the people who have said that One Direction are over and never coming back and all of the boys want to move on and disassociate themselves from it completely, and that anyone who thinks otherwise is both naive and stupid; to all of the boys’ individual stans who want to turn us and the boys against each other and make everything a competition, to all of the people who want to tear the fandom apart with fighting and competition and stupid drama, I want to say that these boys still love each other.  They still love the band.  They are still a family.  

To One Direction, I want to say thank you for all of the hope and inspiration and joy and courage and strength and laughter and light that you’ve brought to my life.  Thank you for giving me the hope and strength to keep going and keep fighting and keep dreaming and keep believing. Thank you for showing me that life is worth living. Thank you.