1999 : God Of The Sea

So you turned nineteen, was a member of probably the best pop group to come out of the US in the 90s. You started to notice how your scrawny body was beginning to fill up. You actually woke up and look in the mirror and liked what you saw looking back at you. You surprised yourself when you didn’t even cringe. Kevin always said you needed to work on your self-esteem anyway.

You were named one of the hottest under 21 celebrity and posed on covers of magazines next to the likes of Britney Spears.

Oh you enjoyed that photoshoot, too much if you were ever brave enough to admit it.

You have girls screaming for your name and while you didn’t think you could ever stop the hidden blush creeping from your cheeks to your ears and the warmth you get from it, you now took notice of those girls and realized they were hot, and they were there for YOU. You believed you had an epiphany. So that’s what AJ was talking about!

You moved out of the small, crappy house and bought your family a huge one. You filled in them, all the luxuries money can buy. You felt proud and most of all happy, that you could provide such things to your sisters and brother and to see that your parents didn’t have to struggle too much to make ends meet.

You bought yourself a house, something that you didn’t think you could afford at nineteen. You learnt fast that celebrities have huge houses and fast cars and they always have interesting stuff in their fridge.

You had a girlfriend. She was your first love and boy, you loved every inch of her. She was everything.

So one day, when you were out on the road, touring with your bandmates whom you’d since referred to as your brothers, you realized you had everything you’d ever wished for, came true. You were living the dream and boy it felt good!

But then you started thinking and surprised yourself at how much that didn’t hurt your head.

Surely there’s more to life than this!

And you decided there is more to life than this!

Complete silence had overcome the touring bus. Everyone seemed to be entertaining their own thoughts. You knew for sure AJ was entertaining to his thoughts by the way he kept staring at the Playboy magazine that he kept rotating at different angles. And you knew for sure Kevin never stopped thinking. You were surprised Howie wasn’t on the phone with someone. And Brian was busy studying his nails, probably thinking ‘to bite or not to bite’.

And then you broke the silence.

Just because you hated silence.

And because you’re Nick, you love to annoy people.

“I’m going to have my first tattoo!”

That’s what I’m talking about baby! AJ had exclaimed.

You do know that it hurts right? Asked Howie, cringing. Oh how you loved to make Howie cringe. You figured even if you decided not to have that tattoo after all, it had been worth it just seeing his reaction right then.

You should have Tazmanian Devil on your back, said Brian thoughtfully and then bit his nail with a vengeance.

Not you too! Groaned Kevin as he shifted eyes between you and AJ.

And that’s what you did. You had a shark on your left arm because you were afraid of the sharks yet you have the utmost respect for the God of the Sea. And because you love the ocean and everything that comes with it. Sometimes, you wished, you were like the Shark, fearless and swift. You also had a pet name for your tattooed shark. You called him Sam.

Sup Sam! You’d greeted it in the morning with a slap on your arm. You were also smart enough to do this when there was no one around and when your girlfriend wasn’t in bed with you.

You were also suffocated by the controlling nature of your mother, who had turned into the stage mom that you feared would happen eventually. You also decided seven years of such confusion was enough. You had to do something about it and you did.

You wanted a mother, not a manager. So you fired her and demanded your independence.

It was a tough decision to make, but you made one and lived with it. You felt liberated in some ways, yet couldn’t shake the sense of lost in another. But life is scarce, so you decided to live it to the fullest. And you said this, to your fans, in number codes nonetheless, and felt like some smart ass cryptology expert.

But that’s just how the world is to you. One huge puzzle. You have to be bothered enough to work out the mysteries, or everything is just dull. And Nick Carter hates dullness.

Oh, and the creepy spider called Don, with all its eight legs crawling on the wall as you lay awake in the dark at night. You hated him too.