Back when I was a fresh-faced 16 year old, I was in a long-distance relationship (if I can call it that, given the benefit of a decade of hindsight!) with a girl called Hanna all the way from the United States of America. She was my first love, my first heartbreak, and my first real taste of the Yanks.
When things went sour, as teenage relationships so often do, and I couldn’t as much as face getting out of bed for two days straight, she told me that, if I were ever sad and she couldn’t be there to soothe my stinging heart, she hoped that I’d listen to Drops of Jupiter by Train and think of her.
After wading my way through a very turbulent decade for such a day to come, I became fortunate enough a year ago tonight to stand just metres from Pat Monahan, and to blast my heart out to one of the songs that stands out to me as one of the few reasons that I held on when I felt like I had no other reason to do so.
So, Hanna, if you ever end up back in the atmosphere, with Drops of Jupiter in your hair, and happen to stumble on this piece, I want simply to say thank you. What we had was a fleeting moment in amongst a rather hectic lifetime, but it happened, it mattered, and it’s remembered through its ripples on my life to this day.