The Night I Bought One Ticket

Here's the thing about going to a concert alone: everyone I mentioned it to made a face. Not a mean face, more like the face you make when someone tells you they're going to eat at a restaurant alone on a Friday night. A little concerned, a little impressed, a little 'are you sure?' And I get it. A year ago I would've made that face too.

But it's June, I'm eighteen, and I've been sitting on the possibility of doing something slightly uncomfortable and completely mine for a few weeks now. This was the thing I picked. Grabbed a general admission ticket off the box office window, the kind you actually hold in your hand, the paper kind, drove myself twenty minutes out to the amphitheater, and walked in alone. I stood toward the back at first like I was waiting for someone. Then I stopped pretending and just... moved up.

I don't know how to explain what happens in a crowd when the lights cut and the first chord hits and eight hundred people decide in the same instant to stop being individual people for a while.

after. voice gone. heart full. worth every penny.

There was a song in the middle of the set that I wasn't expecting to know and I knew every word. My voice is completely wrecked today. I'm typing this with a cup of cold tea next to me and a venue wristband I haven't cut off yet.

Afterward I stood outside for a while, leaning on the railing, watching everyone file out in groups and pairs. I wasn't sad about being alone. That surprised me. I was just, full, I think is the word. Like something had been poured in that had been a little empty. I've had that feeling once or twice before and I always forget it exists until it's back. I think that's why I keep the lopsided bowl on my dresser. Same feeling. Do the uncomfortable thing, discover it wasn't that uncomfortable after all, it was just new.