Ya know....
If they tossed the entire lot and told us "we're starting over, sorry"
If it never even came out, if the Best Ofs, "The Hands That Built America" and "Electrical Storm" were the last we ever heard from them as U2... they decide to not release an album that could, in their opinion, be evidence that they should stop on a high note rather than end with tails tucked after a mediocre album, to decide to go off and live their lives as four men with families and hobbies and occasionally get together to do something creative when the mood strikes... maybe Edge will get into tinkering with the new technologies that become possible by the day (as he was recently seen at the CES conference)... maybe Larry will go ride his Harley across Europe, maybe Adam can open a nightclub (lol), and as for Mr. Hewson well we all know where he'll be, right in the faces of the politicians....
I will love and respect them no less than I do now.
They may well have missed their children's first steps, first words, the 3rd grade pageants and the times when they woke up crying in the night for "Dada, Dada..." or come home after a long tour and feel like a loose cog, lost in the patterns their families moved in while they were gone. "Kite" even came about from a bout of guilt, never being home to take the kids out to the beach... and even when he tried, it fell through.... the kite landing with a wet thud in the sand while the kids asked to go back to the house and play videogames....
I don't even know where I'm going with this. I think I'm just trying to say that I can't be angry with them for taking whatever time they need, or stopping forever if that's what they feel is best.
It will break my heart the day they do "stop being U2", whenever and however that comes about, I won't lie. But it's not their responsibility to take that burden onto their lives, does that make sense?
Some of us have been fans since the beginning and some only since last week -- there's equal frustration while rumors and hoaxes and cryptic statements from Management fly amongst us.
Sit back..... go listen to the Salom? outtakes or something, listen to the processes they went through to get Achtung Baby out... and realise that those same things are going on now even as we get frustrated at having our hopes raised and dashed.
They have given me so much. The least I can give them back is time.