I am NOT the fangirl type. I always tell people that, and it's pretty much true. But I find that I need a new language when describing my (admittedly) one-sided connection to U2.

1982. I was 17 and had lost my mom unexpectedly a little more less than three years before. I met a boy. You know the story. Except it's funny how you usually don't understand what's happening while it's happening. The boy and I bonded over music. Or rather, we sparred about music. I was working my way through the greatest hits of the 60s. He quoted The Clash's "phony Beatlemania has bitten the dust" line. Debates ensued.

Then he played Laurie Anderson's “O Superman” for me, and pretty much blew my mind. Psychedelic Furs, The Split Enz, and Gary Numan followed. I soaked up the music as if it were a new type of air. When I asked for more, he threw out some options for the B-side of a cassette he was sending me. One of the options was this band called U2. He cautioned me that they were a Christian band. He wasn't sure how that would sit with me as a Jewish girl who was pretty uncomfortable with organized religion but also somewhat defensive and unsure where my secular background fit into the larger world.

Something about the album's title, October, intrigued me, though (I no longer remember what the other options were). I've never been a person you'd equate with bright sunny summer days. I'm more of a dark nights, crunchy leaves underfoot, chill in the air type. The one title word sounded enticingly bleak and cold. Comforting, in a way.

What did I hear when I put that cassette on? I wish I could remember that moment. No doubt the first track, Gloria, hooked me immediately (how could it not?). It remains one of my favorite tracks to this day). I'm sure that the emotional intensity of the album bowled me over. I'm equally certain that when I got to the song Tomorrow, I sobbed because it still has that effect on me.

Bono has said that he didn't realize until years later that the song was about the death of his mother when he was 14, but I realized it because the song hit me like an anvil and still does.

There was something else about this album though. It included Uileann Pipes and bodhran. I had no clue what either of those was at the time, but the sound they made spoke to me. Loudly. Lacking the internet. Google. Computers. It took me a while to find answers to my musical questions. When I got those answers, I found Clannad. I realized that the haunting instrumentations used by Kate Bush were Irish. I was hooked in a way that owed nothing to conscious decision-making. My connection was deep and mysterious, and I had no choice but to see where it would lead.

In the meantime, I remember watching the premiere of U2's New Year's Day video. Then I saw U2 in a 3,000-seat theatre in Detroit. 12th row center seats. $7.50. I still have the tapes of the show. And the ticket stub. And the buttons. And the sweatshirt.

I bought a neon orange gig poster from an old U2 London show, which cost two whole weeks' allowance. My dad, aka the world's biggest Sinatra fan, was upset with me. "Why are you wasting your money. No one will even know who that band is six months from now." (Have I let him forget this? No, dear reader, I have not.)

I saw the band again next on the Unforgettable Fire tour. They played a hockey arena that held 20,000 people, and I was on the balcony listening to each of those people sing "Pride (In the Name of Love)," which seemed to be the only song that most of them knew. I remember sighing and thinking, there goes that.

But I couldn't give up on U2. Time passed. U2's music intersected with my life at critical times. After college, I moved to Chicago, went to an Irish pub, and had my first Guinness (Oh, I thought. I don't hate beer after all). I was able to see U2 as they toured. I wrote news pieces for a large U2 fan site.

In 2000, I was living in New York and found myself with too much time on my hands. What should I do with it? The possibilities seemed endless. I was in NYC, after all.

I wandered into an Irish pub on session night. I'd nurtured my love of traditional music but had mostly only seen it played live at festivals. I had the same feeling stepping into that pub with a peat fire burning in the back as I did when I listened to that old cassette of October. It felt oddly like home.

I talked to the musicians. I thought it would be fun to write about an upcoming accordion album release, but who, I wondered, would print such a thing? By that time, I had…a computer! (But not yet a cell phone). And that computer allowed me to answer that question. I pitched the story, and the Dublin-based magazine bought it. Then they contacted me to cover a pretty big trad band event in NY.

I suffered a crisis of conscience. Could I write this cover article on a subject I really knew nothing about? I adopted some Irish bluster, and with the help of some local musicians who drilled me on everything trad very, very quickly, I took the assignment and ended up writing for that magazine for a decade. (If my editor is reading this….sorry.)

I was still in NYC for 9/11, after which I needed a break. I flew to Dublin to meet with my editor, landing at some ridiculous time of the morning, the hotel generously allowing me to crash even though my room wasn't ready. Then I wandered to one of the oldest pubs in the city and watched Altan film a session for French TV while above my head, on the pub's TV, Bill Clinton spoke about suspected anthrax that had been sent to his office.

My goal was the trip was simple. Five days of speaking to no one outside of that one meeting. Five days spent listening to music. My Irish friends laughed, knowing that I wouldn't go five days in a Temple Bar pub without someone speaking to me.

Little did they know how right they were. That first night in Dublin, I walked into a pub, listened to some fantastic music, and met the man I'd later marry.

We lived in England. Then in NYC, and now we're in Nashville, where I moved to work for a record label that needed a marketing person who understood…what else? Irish traditional music. The job ended up not being a good fit, but the music remained.

Nashville isn't always supportive of rock acts. Huge names often have problems filling our venues. So far, I've seen U2 play at our hockey arena and a University open-air football stadium. This week, I saw Bono at the hallowed Ryman (2300 seats) when he was here to speak about his new memoir, SURRENDER.

But that almost didn't happen. Although I was online and clicking, I couldn't get a ticket. A good samaritan reached out to me on Twitter and sold me his three days before the show. I went to the show hours early because parking downtown is a challenge and the CMAs were on as well. I hadn't planned on it (I'm not a fangirl, remember?), but I decided to walk by the venue to see if there was any sort of sign outside to photograph (there wasn't) and got sucked into a small crowd of people waiting for Bono to enter the stage door. I hung out with some cool people (true U2 fans are, without a doubt, the kindest and most drama-free fanbase I've ever come across), took some photos, grabbed some food, and went to the show.

I keep falling back on the word "transcendent" because I'm unsure how to put a phrase to the joy that filled the room throughout the whole event. When the sound people are on, Ryman has the best sound of any venue I've been to, and this was shimmering and crystal clear. Bono also sounded better than he has in years. Or perhaps the minimal accompaniment just allowed that voice to be heard in a way I hadn't heard since those early days.

I've been listening to the audiobook of Surrender slowly. Savoring it. So, thankfully, I'd already teared up at Bono's stories about his mom. But in listening to him at the Ryman, 25 minutes from my house, I realized that something had come full circle. That random decision to listen to a cassette because I liked the title resulted in a decade-long writing job that I adored, a link to a musical lineage that speaks to my soul, and a husband. I have a lot to thank Bono for. So maybe, just maybe, I need to own that "fan girl" label and wear it as proudly as I do my concert t-shirts and pins. Perhaps that label isn't such a bad thing after all.