Birthday Bliss

Ladies and gentlemen, drum roll please…

The winner of the 2011 Boyfriend of the Year Award goes to… my very own, Alex Ruggles!

For my 24^th birthday (technically, September 28), Alex gifted me with two tickets to see one Taylor Swift in concert in Nashville. If you know me, you know that this is a really, really, really big deal. From the moment he told me, I knew this was going to be a ridiculously cool birthday present. And I just had no idea.

On the last weekend of August, Alex and I had gone to Muscle Shoals to visit his parents. On the way home from church, I suggested that we have some of my friends who Alex hadn’t met yet over on a weekend that I knew Alex was going to be in Guntersville. Immediately, he said no, don’t plan anything. Perturbed by my endless need to plan weeks in advance, he told me that “the cat was halfway out of the bag,” and further illustrated that the cat’s back legs were out and now it was just going crazy with its head left in the bag. Hello, internal struggle.

A few hours later, we had made our way onto a jet ski and into the middle of the lake, and Alex could take it no longer. The cat in the bag was apparently getting frantic. So we stopped there in the middle of the lake and he dropped one of his signature truth bombs on me: on Saturday, September 17, we were going to see my girl Taylor in Nashville. He had already talked it over with my best friend Lauren, and we were going to crash at her and her husband’s home in Nashville. Taylor Swift and my lifetime bestie in one weekend? Could it get any better? Oh yes, indeed it could.

We arrived in Nashville on Saturday just in time to have a cheeseburger at an Irish pub just off Broadway in Downtown Nashville. The smell and the sparse crowd weren’t promising, but the burgers were surprisingly good—I guess low expectations can go a long way. Afterward, we trekked back up Broadway to the Bridgestone Arena.

I had carefully not allowed myself to get too worked up until this moment. As we approached the arena—dressed just like the rest of Nashville with me in my sundress and cowboy boots and Alex in plaid and dark jeans—my heart began to race and my camera took on a life of its own. I took snapshot after snapshot of downtown, the arena, the tour bus, us in downtown, us in front of the arena, us in front of the tour bus, us on the escalator… you get the picture.

The show started out by opening with a band called Needtobreathe. All I knew about this band is that it is a good friend of mine’s favorite and the only part of the show that Al was really looking forward to (although he put up a good show for my sake). Needtobreathe didn’t disappoint—the band was truly talented from the musicians to the lyrics.

And then…. The Main Event! After a brief intermission, Taylor came out in a shower of theatrics. She worked a metallic gold dressed and belted out ‘Sparks Fly’ before letting the crowd know how happy she was to see us. Obviously, she meant me, but I understand that she felt like she needed to acknowledge everyone else. It’s just good business.

Taylor has this delightful way of coming out on stage with this “Aw, shucks” look, as though she’s truly shocked to find us all here watching. After almost every number, her jaw drops and she looks around in awe as the crowd goes wild around her. This could seem a bit contrived if you think about it—I assume she does this same routine at every show she does—but if it is, I would like to nominate Taylor for an Oscar. Even Alex agreed that she seemed completely and truly humbled to have so many people there supporting her.

In between “sets,” when Taylor was being changed into her next costume and the stage was magically morphing into a new scene, a chimney sweep tapped his way across the stage in an extremely entertaining show of talent. And then Taylor popped out of the floor, seemingly from nowhere. In her white flowing prairie dress, she picked up a banjo and joined a string band for a few numbers, including the first Taylor song I ever really loved—Our Song.

I could describe every set change, but then this blog is getting long enough as it is. Bravo if you’ve stuck with it. So I’ll just hit the highlights. Among them, a tree made up of twinkling Christmas lights descended into the audience in the back of the arena, so Taylor made her way—escorted by multiple guards—through a crowd of fainting teenagers desperately reaching out for a touch from their idol. And she obliged, over and over. At the back of the arena, she sat at the base of the tree and played Fearless, Last Kiss, and a few others while the tree turned slowly, giving all of us in the back a closer look.

After she made her way back to the stage, there many more memorable costume changes, but the most excitement was brought about by the “special friends” Taylor brought out. First, she introduced a man known and loved throughout the South for his songs about youth, football, and summertime… “Ladies and gentlemen, Mr. Kenny Chesney!” Kenny came out to a roar of applause and played a duet with Taylor—of course, he seemed to be a bit intoxicated and seemed to lose his way around the second verse, but he eventually caught back up and finished strong. Apparently, this is a pretty common happening with ol’ Kenny.

And then, the grand finale. As all stars do, Taylor brought down the curtain and the crowd went wild for an encored. The curtain opened once more to an open stage—out of the center of the stage, a couch was rising slowly. Perched a top in a yards and yards of tulle, was Taylor with a man in a black cowboy hat who could be recognized even at my seat in the upper deck.

“Is that TIM MCGRAW!?!? Oh my gosh, that’s Tim McGraw!!”

At this point, I just lost my mind. I leaned forward with my jaw dropped for the duration of Tim’s song—Just to See You Smile—and for nearly an hour afterward. Now, at this point, we lost most of the 10-18 year old audience. They looked around at each other confused as to why their parents and other adults were going nuts, but I immediately morphed into a teenage girl at an N*Sync concert. At the peak of his fame when I was 13, the man’s still got it at 23-going-on-24.

So there you have it—what is quite possibly my best birthday present ever. And to think, my “birthday weekend” (a little early though it was) wasn’t even over yet.