Meeting Darren Criss

Kris
Jul 3, 2013
2 min read

Dear Darren,

I spent the first day after in my pjs and looking at the pictures over and over, editing together a vlog of all the videos, and criticizing my face in the picture at the stage door.

I spent the second day flying across the ice rink with remnant euphoria and spending the rest of the day doing much like the first.

Day three, and I'm still running through every moment, preserving every memory. The VIP lanyard is in my car with the pins you liked so much. I'm still wearing my wristband and the friendship bracelet I made in the colors of Listen Up while in line at the door.

It's ok you didn't remember my scarf. It is truly honestly ok. I'm ok.

Once upon a time that scarf was everything, and it still is beautiful. But it's what it represents that is everything - the healing, the gratefulness, the sheer will to get up in the morning. And you don't need to know the scarf to know those things.

It's in the way I said thank you a bunch of times, the way I turned bright red for our picture, the way my smile is bright but just on the verge of spilling out over the surface.

It's in the way I waited 3 hours after the show because I didn't want the night to end. The way my smile wasn't held back this time - my cheeks pressed up so high by my smile that my eyes are closed with happiness, exhaustion, and ecstasy all at once.

It's in the fact that you move me to do things I wouldn't normally do, like write 6-page letters and wait outside for 8.5 hours, and make videos of myself that I can actually watch because I was so happy.

And though you can't possibly get all that from a 20 second interaction, you still managed to make me feel special. You looked at me, took me in, and remembered me after meeting 100+ people that day. You hugged me and pressed your fingers into my bicep where there were once yellow bruises. You wished me a happy birthday. You smiled for me. You pressed your cheek against my temple.

Darren, you made me so happy.

You just were, and you are. And that's enough for me.

Thank you.

Note from 2016: When I first made this entry in 2013, I posted a vlog that I've since decided I cannot re-post. It was raw, too raw. I'm no vlogger, guys. I don't know how to shoot and edit a video, and as much as I feel like it was incredibly special that the emotion was so in the moment, I don't have the means to present it to you effectively in its original format. It's for the better that I removed the video, but I wanted to give you something else instead.

What I could do, since this space has always been about words, is give you the most personal thing I have from this night: a diary entry, written 3 days after seeing the show in Silver Spring.