The Biggest Lesson I Learned From Being a Blake Shelton Fan

Not since Elvis in 1958, when I was 10 years old, had I had a celebrity crush. Not until 2013, when I found the singing competition show, The Voice, and became acquainted with its country music superstar, Blake Shelton.

I wasn't even a country music fan. I had no idea who he was. All I knew was I was staring at a 6'5", blue-eyed, loooong legged cowboy with the smile and deep Southern drawl that could charm the panties off any woman with a pulse. 

Then I heard him sing. I fell in love with his mesmerizing voice and the stories his lyrics told. "Hmm", I thought to myself, "maybe there is a reason Country Music is the most popular musical genre in the nation."

Imagine my joy when I found out that he was bringing his tour to Orlando, Florida, a mere 2-hour drive from me. I was ecstatic. There was no way I was going to miss seeing him in person.

Had my life been as it had for the previous 40+ years of my marriage, I would have told my husband about my enthusiasm for seeing Blake, and although he was not a country music fan, he would have acquiesced and agreed to go with me. ( We worked that way - I went with him to concerts he liked and he went with me to concerts I liked. We often surprised ourselves and actually enjoyed some of each other's music tastes.)

But this happened to be during one of the most sorrowful, difficult times of my life. The love affair my husband and I shared has been well documented in other stories I have written on Medium and Vocal ( Click here, here, and here to read some of them.) 

He was now confined to a nursing home in the late stages of Alzheimer's Disease. Although I visited him daily (Yes, he still knew who I was), I was living alone, lonely, and having a difficult time adjusting to the realization that Alzheimer's Disease had ripped him from the picture of our life as a couple; torn us apart and shredded what had been an unbreakable union for over 40 years.

Besides being my best friend, lover, and chief cheerleader, he was my partner in life. We enjoyed doing things together, whether it was going to concerts or sitting on the deck watching the dogs play. For 44 years, we traveled, faced life's tragedies, handled finances, and made decisions - TOGETHER. I DID NOT LIKE being alone and having to do any of it by myself. I missed him desperately.

But Alzheimer's Disease had upended our lives and, hate it or not, I was alone. 

"Well, geesh", I thought, " I do have friends. Lots of them. I'll just ask one of them to go with me to the Blake concert." 

I asked every friend I had and was flatly turned down each time. Although many of these friends had previously professed to be country music fans, no one was enthusiastic enough to pay the steep ticket price and make a 4-hour round trip.

There I sat, at my desk, looking at the floor plan of the concert arena on my computer, feeling disappointed and depressed. I had really wanted to go to that concert and now I couldn't. No one would go with me.

Then it happened. Suddenly, I felt a shift under my feet so jolting, that I swear the earth moved under me. It was as if an earthquake imploded in my body, and the thought burst through like a lightning bolt. I thought………….Wait a minute. Wait just one damn minute here. I want to go to that concert. ME. I want to go. Why should I not go just because someone else doesn't want to go? I can go if I want to. I can go by myself.

It had never occurred to me, in 40+ years that my husband and I were together, to go to a concert alone. But he wasn't here. I was and I wanted to go.

At that moment, Blake Shelton turned the pattern of my life from "we" to "I". I'm not saying I liked it. I would have given everything I had to return my husband to health and regain the "we" life we had. But fate didn't deal me that hand. Hate it or not, I was now "I", not "we", and I had to play it that way.

I not only bought myself a ticket to the concert, I booked myself a hotel room in Orlando for one night, as I knew I would be too tired to make a 2-hour drive home after 11 PM.

I suppose the happy ending to this story would be to tell you that I went to the concert, had a wonderful time alone, and have continued to attend concerts solo since then.

No, that is not quite what happened. I did thoroughly enjoy the concert. The man did not disappoint. But the loneliness, the aloneness, and being surrounded by couples and groups, were unnerving and hurtful. Heartbreakingly hurtful. I would be dishonest to say otherwise.

My husband passed away less than a year later, and for the following year, I drove myself in excess of an hour each time to three different concerts. One involved another overnight hotel stay.

I was no less lonely at the next three concerts than I had been at the first, but I proved a point. It was possible to go to a concert alone and enjoy it because it was a show I wanted to see. It didn't matter that my friends didn't want to see it.

In the 7 years since Sid's death, I haven't attended any more concerts alone, only because my musical choices have synced with those of my friends.

However, I know now that if a concert comes up for which I cannot find a companion, I am capable of going as an Independent. I'll never like it; I'll never stop missing my husband; but thanks to a Blake Shelton concert I was desperate to see, I know I can go alone if I need to.

First published in Medium, Illuminated Curated Publication

©Copyright 2022 Joan Gershman