Heart Strong - Kayla Kelly (good book recommendations .txt) 📗

For 8 long years of my life I contemplated the idea of receiving a wish from the Make A Wish of America Foundation. I just couldn't decide on one single wish. In the beginning, I wanted a horse. Secondly, I wanted a Hawaiian vacation. Finally towards the beginning of the year 2010, I finally settled on two wish ideas. My wish ideas were between a Hawaiian vacation or a meet and greet with the Disney channel stars, the Jonas Brothers, whom at the time were at the top peak of their career. I have seen them perform live in concert about five times. The thought of either meeting them or vacationing to Hawaii was mind blowing to me. How does someone pick just one thing when knowing it could be anything you want? Anyway, soon after submitting those two wish ideas I changed my mind once again. January 19th, 2007 I began following a young kid on youtube. His name was Justin Bieber. He had about 3 or 4 videos uploaded of himself singing in a competition in Stratford, Ontario Canada. He was just 12 years old at the time and I was only 13. For the next few years, I was subscribed to his channel. This way I was able to check out every new video he posted as soon as he posted it. I noticed he began to sing such a wide variety of genres. I immediately fell in love and became a life long fan. Soon enough he released his first single which was titled "One Time". Soon after the release of this song, the music video for it had been released. It went viral almost immediately receiving millions of views. In September of 2009, I began to follow him on Twitter. I had all of his tweets sent as texts to my cell. Anyway, I received a text saying he was going to be performing that day at a local mall. Once I arrived there, I felt like an idiot because I realized I had been saying his name wrong. What a fan I felt like. Just kidding! I was standing all the way at the back of the crowd that gathered around the stage. All of that didn't matter because I was about to see him perform. This show had been towards the beginning of his career. I was surprised when after only 3 songs he was done performing and exited the stage. I guess thats what you get when you're watching someone new to the game. Still, I didn't care. I was just so happy to be there. I have since become a huge Bieber fan. With each song, performance, interview, and video, I fell even sicker with the Bieber fever. Well now, it's the beginning of 2010.I am a senior in high school. I've finally decided on my last and final wish idea. When the Make A Wish Foundation called me and asked what my wish was going to be, I told them. I told them that I wanted to take Justin Bieber to prom. Soon enough word spread around school like wild fire. I walked down the hallways and would occasionally hear other students, some that I've never even met, saying things like "Did you hear that Justin Bieber might be attending our prom?". Some students even walked up to me and asked if I was the girl that was going to be taking Justin Bieber to prom. Soon enough it felt like everyone and their mother knew about it. The story was the hot topic of many conversations. Eventually, I began to get nervous. I wasn't nervous about everyone talking or anything like that. What was I going to wear? How was I going to do my hair and makeup? Will we be taking a limo? For the next few weeks of my life it seemed like these were the only thoughts that consumed my mind. I couldn't think of anything else, even school. I'm pretty sure one or two of my grades even dropped a bit from being so distracted. Anyway, the next few weeks were agonizing. I couldn't stand waiting for the foundation to call and tell me if my wish had been approved or not. A few weeks after the submission of my wish, I received a phone call. However, it wasn't good news. They told me that they had spoken to Justin's crew and unfortunately he had an event the same day of prom and could not make it. I was crushed and felt heart broken. I had gotten my hopes up. I cried for days in secrecy. I didn't want anyone to know I was as upset as I was. I sat around for days thinking, "I finally picked a wish, and it was a wish that couldn't happen. What am I possibly going to do now?". I felt so disappointed. For the next few days I thought about what my new wish would be. I may not have been able to attend my senior prom with Justin but I knew for sure that I had to meet him no matter what. At this point, I didn't care about when or where it would happen. I called the coordinator from the foundation and told her my new wish idea. When I spoke to her, I explained that my wish was still to meet him. She told me that she would once again contact his team and then call me the moment she heard back from them. For the next few weeks, I did nothing but wait and sit by the phone just hoping she would call with good news. Soon enough she did. She called and told me that she had spoken to Justin himself and he had been very apologetic for not being able to attend prom and that he still wanted to meet with me and make it a very special experience. The most exciting factor about this whole situation for me was that I was Justin Bieber's first ever Make A Wish kid. To this day, it makes me laugh whenever I think about the moment I told the coordinator I wanted to meet him. It only made me laugh because when I first told her I wanted to meet Justin, she had not a clue who he was. Not many people knew of him. So, I had to explain who he was. I told her that he was most famous for his videos on youtube and he had just released his first music video. Anyway, she had given me two dates to choose from. My choices were between June 23rd in Hartford, Connecticut and June 26th in Cincinnati, Ohio. I chose Cincinnati. That was it. The date was finally set. June 26th, marked the day that I was going to meet my idol. For the next few days I could not stop day dreaming about the upcoming event. Our local news station even interviewed me and did a story about it which they aired on our local tv channel. They asked me questions like "What part are you most excited for?" and "What do you think you will say to him when you meet him?". All of this, of course made me more excited than I already was. Each day seemed to drag on longer and longer. I started a countdown from the day I first found out when I was going to meet him. It was exactly 186 days away from that moment. After a long 186 days, it was finally that day. The Make A Wish Foundation had a whole plan set in motion. I had an appointment at a place called Pump Salon to get my hair and makeup done. Just before that we went out shopping for just the right outfit. I bought a strapless, floral printed dress that was cut just above the knees. The second I tried it on, I fell in love with it. After we purchased the dress and left my hair and makeup appointment we drove back to the hotel in our rental car which by the way was my dream car, a brand new 2011 red Ford Mustang. Once we got back to the hotel, which overlooked the main square in Cincinnati, we began to get ready. All that was left for me was to get dressed. Once we were finally ready to go, we were instructed to meet a Make A Wish coordinator in the hotel lobby. When we got downstairs we saw a woman holding a sign with my name on it. Then we were taken to the venue via limousine. When we got to the arena, we had to pick up our tickets and wrist bands from will call. Our volunteer explained to the salesman that we were there from Make A Wish. Our backstage wristbands were the exact same as regular ones. We were told to wait outside of the entrance to the arena until Justin's tour manager came outside to get us. We waited outside for about 30 minutes until his tour manager opened the door and called us over. Before hand, while we were waiting outside we had quite a few people come over to us and tell us that those who had green bands like ours for meet and greet had already gone in for the group meet and greets. I'm not going to lie, it was really fun having to explain that we were waiting because we were getting a private meet and greet. People became jealous which in a way made me even more excited than I already was. Anyway we then followed the tour guide into the arena and he led us downstairs and backstage to the hallway where Justin's dressing room was located. I saw his wardrobe case while walking down the hallway so I stopped to take a picture of it. Finally we got to his dressing room and were asked to wait outside until he arrived. I waited anxiously, my stomach turning. I heard a slight ruckus coming from down the hall. I looked to my left and saw two very tall and built men walking towards us. I looked between them and saw him. I saw Justin. I could not believe it and I could barely contain the excitement. My idol was walking right towards me. As I watched him take each step closer, the excitement grew. My dream was coming true. I wanted to cry from being so excited but then I recalled an interview I had seen where Justin said he doesn't like to see fans cry because he wants them to be happy. So I held in my tears and flashed a big cheesy smile. Then, just before he turned to enter his dressing room he looked over to me. He took me by the hand and said "Hey, It's very nice to meet you. I'm Justin." Inside I was thinking, "Yes, I already know (:" but I could barely speak. The only words I could mutter out at the moment were "Hi, I'm Kayla." All I was thinking right then and there was "Wow, Justin Bieber just held my hand." He then invited us into his dressing room. Once we got inside, he pulled out two chairs, one for me and one for himself to sit next to me. Then I was thinking "Justin Bieber just pulled out a chair for me!". I still couldn't believe all of it was real. I was just in such a daze. I mean, there I was sitting in a room talking to one of my idols. After about ten minutes of talking and what not, I guess he noticed that I had my phone in my hand. He asked if I