Call it burnout. Call it disinterest. Call it priority-reassessment. Whatever the name, the fact is this: after five years and thousands of dollars devoted to a man and his band, this fan is done. There won’t be more musings about anything Bon Jovi; there won’t be anymore give-away contests (although there will be some items to trade at the local Hastings). No more fan club dues (although that expired last year). No more Bon Jovi ringtone. No more Jon Bon Jovi movie marathons. And why? No any one or any particular reason other than that flame has burned out for Rebecca Wilson as it did for Elizabeth Coffee and Glenn Osrin before her. Don’t know who they are? Then it doesn’t matter anyway.
Jon Bon Jovi is a good man; don’t misunderstand. But that’s just it: he is merely a man. And when one finds that she has elevated a man to godlike status–when she worships at his musical altar and spends more money on him than on things that REALLY matter–that is when the journey has to end.
She can still listen to the music sometimes and occasionally go to the Bon Jovi Facebook page to see what they’re up to, but she doesn’t have to be a cyber-stalker or today’s version of a groupie. And when the band rolls out a new album in a few years and starts another tour, maybe she’ll even buy the album and go see them again for old times’ sake. Or maybe not. Who knows?
Here’s what she does know: it’s been almost a year since she last laid eyes on Jon Bon Jovi live and in the flesh, and she survived. And what a freeing feeling it is not to be wondering when the next concert or awards show or appearance will be–as if each one were a fix. And that’s what they were, really. The problem with that, though, is that the addiction was and is a living, breathing human being. And that’s not fair to him. He didn’t ask to be her addiction.