I Want Candy!

Just like Lizzie McGuire, I spent a majority of my time as a teen, frothing over boys, especially Aaron Carter. A tiny bit of hope lived inside me that they would like me back, but the chances of a celebrity knowing my name, is quite slim. Life doesn't work like a television show, and I am not Lizzie McGuire.

After I watched an episode of Lizzie McGuire, I formed an unhealthy obsession with Aaron Carter, who featured in it. I can't recall the amount of times that I watched the episode on repeat, but it was enough to drive my mum up the wall.

In the episode, Aaron comes to town to film his new music video. Lizzie, Miranda, and Gordo, sneak on the set. A crush as a teen, speaks a different language, adults wouldn't understand the desperate measures one would go to get at least get a glimpse of the celebrity, so I understand the need to sneak on set, it is what I would have done too.

Aaron performs his song "I Want Candy" in a Christmas-themed music video. In that moment, I felt like I was in Lizzie's shoes, he was singing to me and no one else existed. Alas, it wasn't me, I was stuck in front of an average-sized television, watching Lizzie kiss Aaron under a mistletoe, what a coincidence. I still imagined it as me under that mistletoe with him. The song became my most played song, and even that scene in the show, was my most rewatched scene. I am honestly surprised my mum didn't throw away the computer and Television.

My friend would always buy Dolly or Girlfriend magazines. Mainly because they had posters of famous boys in each issue. There was an Aaron Carter poster in there once. I begged her to give it to me, and told her if she didn't hand it over, then I would shrivel up and die. The poster went straight up on the wall in my bedroom, right above my bed. Perfectly positioned to ensure that we could always stare into each other's eyes. It got to the point that my room was covered with his face.

The only thing I wanted for Christmas that year was an Aaron Carter CD. I told my mum everyday leading up to the holiday how I needed this CD to survive. There was no way that I could go on, otherwise. If she had the choice, she would have set every album of his on fire, she had already heard his voice, at least a million times on the computer. Instead, she got me one album of his for Christmas, and a walkman. I got what I wanted, and she didn't have to hear him singing ever again, the best of both worlds.

It was a real obsession. I couldn't breathe, eat, or sleep without his face in the back of my mind. He gave me that butterfly feeling in my stomach. My friends and family were close to an intervention because it had reached an unhealthy point that I had lost all focus in life, except for Aaron, he was my whole entire world. It felt more like love, than a crush. In my heart, I knew that the day that we would finally meet would arrive, but it never did.

One day I forgot he ever existed. I dug a grave in my mind, and placed him in it. Another celebrity crush had formed. There would be many graves filled with dead celebrity crushes, but nothing compared to Aaron Carter, he was my everything. My first true celebrity crush.