Dear R.E.M.: Thank you.

Today, R.E.M. announced they are ending their time as a band.

Look to the left. That little "Follow me, don't follow me" above my Twitter updates? An R.E.M. lyric. Down to the right, that "Jefferson, I think we're lost" - also an R.E.M. lyric.

R.E.M. has meant immense things to me and has had huge, far-reaching effects on my life. In the days of the old AOL message boards, I made friends through the R.E.M. board - friends I ended up traveling to Athens, GA to meet. (Athens, GA is where R.E.M. originated, for those without proper R.E.M. schooling.) I traveled to Ohio and Seattle to hang out with them again. They came to NYC and we saw R.E.M. in concert together and made fools of ourselves on an MTV concert, standing in the front row, singing and jumping up and down like we thought we were in the band. I, living outside NYC, had won tickets to that concert through a local radio station. My friends from Seattle won tickets through their local radio station. It was kismet. One time, I travelled to Boston for an R.E.M. concert and ran into my friends from Seattle outside the restrooms. None of us knew the other had planned to attend and stumbled upon each other in a crowd of thousands (resulting in the only time in my life that I've done that girly, squealing, "Oh my god!!!" run and greet).

Even before that, I sat in dorm rooms and analyzed R.E.M. videos with new college friends, talking about them in the way that only nerdy English majors would. I sat with the video of "It's the End of the World as We Know It" on VHS and played it a hundred times, pausing, rewinding, playing, pausing, playing until I had written down what I thought were the exact lyrics (I was close). I then went on to memorize those lyrics because, well, it's simply awesome to be able to sing that song.

(Note for young folks: this was pre-internet so I couldn't just Google the lyrics. If they weren't in the liner notes, you weren't getting them unless you caught a lyric sheet thrown by Michael at a concert.)

When I saw R.E.M. with friends, I told them that if they didn't absolutely scream, "I feel fine!" during the chorus to that song, we couldn't be friends anymore. I once screamed it so hard that I nearly blacked out (and was, therefore, not fine in that moment, but I didn't care).

I've seen R.E.M in concert somewhere around 25 times. I've met all of the band members in person, except for Bill. I've seriously embarrassed myself in front of Michael Stipe exactly twice. I have one tattoo and I got it during that first trip to Athens GA (and it's R.E.M. related, though not blatantly). I have cringed every time some band gets called "the new R.E.M.".

As the news about R.E.M. slowly sinks in, my brain is flooding with scattered memories of all the people I met because of R.E.M., all the road trips I took, all the laughs, all the time figuring out how I wanted to live my life.

When I met Peter Buck, I had him sign my booklet for Automatic for the People and told him that album saved my life. He stopped, stared off for a couple of seconds, then looked back at me and said, "Yeah, me too. Me too."

R.E.M. helped me find myself in my teens and 20s. They're an essential piece of the fabric that is me. When most people I know hear something about R.E.M., they think of me (and tell me so) - and I love that. I love that when people I know hear something about the band, they think, "Ooh, I've got to tell her I heard this." R.E.M. continues to connect me to people.

So, today's news brought me to tears. The end of R.E.M. is the end to a part of my life. But the music and the memories will continue to exist, to be called upon whenever I wish or need.

One of the songs that has defined me above every other:

River poet search naivete

So, thank you, R.E.M. From the bottom of my heart, thank you.