"Music is the great uniter. An incredible force. Something that people who differ on everything and anything else can have in common." –Sara Dessen, Just Listen.
Throwback to 2012, I was 13 years old in eighth grade attending choir class like any normal day when Hannah, one of my best friends, comes up to me freaking out. I still remember her saying to me and I quote, "I just heard about this British boy band and they are all so cute and around our age and their name is One Direction and you have to listen to this song!" First, they aren't exactly around our age, but regardless, little did I know this would lead us on a long road of being "basic white girls" who followed this band.
Jump forward to July 2013 when I was beyond excited that my parents surprised me with tickets for my birthday to a One Direction concert in Charlotte, North Carolina. Jump forward again to July 2015 when my parents surprised me once again for my birthday to tickets to a One Direction concert in Detroit, Michigan. This time, however, I was allowed to bring friends. So, of course, I brought Hannah and another one of our friends that we had pulled into our One Direction obsession. Needless to say, we had a great time. However, in 2015 we had reached the ages of 16 and 17, and didn't realize at the time, that our "obsession" had begun to die. It was the announcement that One Direction was going to take a hiatus that our "obsession" had officially burned out. Yes, we were disappointed, but we also realized that we didn't feel like we were going to die unlike how we would have felt back in 2012.
Jump to 2016 when Hannah and I graduated high school and initially I went to UC and she went to Duquesne. However, she ended up transferring to UC the spring semester of the 2016-17 academic year. Between being initially at different colleges, and then ending up at the same university but in different colleges with different majors, we found it hard to make time to catch up and see each other.
However, jump to June 21, 2018, I had been listening to former One Direction member, Harry Styles' album for about two weeks. I knew he had been on tour but that day I felt that God was trying to guide me to look up his tour schedule and it turned out that on June 27 he was performing at Bankers Life Fieldhouse in Indianapolis, Indiana. Without even looking to see if tickets were available, I immediately felt called by God to text Hannah, even though I had not spoken to her in months, about going to this concert that was less than a week away. After two days of debating, we found and bought tickets to Harry Styles' concert.
On June 27 at 3:41 p.m., Hannah and I began our 3-hour drive to Indianapolis. She turned to look at me and asked me "what tunes do you want?" and when I looked at her she smiled and immediately knew. About 10 seconds later, the song that originally brought us together started blasting through the speakers, "What Makes You Beautiful" by One Direction. On the three hour drive there, we listened to One Direction songs of course in addition to the Harry Styles album in addition to other songs and other artists. After to getting to Indianapolis and going to the concert, we screamed and fangirled over Harry so much that we both lost our voices, and I have to say it was one of the best concerts I have ever been to.
When I woke up the next morning and thought about the previous night, it was then that I realized, God had brought Hannah and I together through the power of music. We had jammed to music, screamed, fangirled, and danced just like it was 2012 again. Not only had I attended an incredible concert, but God reunited me with an amazing friend. God made me realize how powerful music is. Sure Hannah and I are older and don't talk as much. We don't see each other as much, and we are being guided by God on different paths. But truly, nothing has changed. If there is a friend that you are missing, wanting to reach out to again, trying to reconnect with, or maybe you are trying to save a friendship, don't forget the power that music has.
