Every Word, Apparently

The thing nobody tells you about waiting two hours in a line that wraps around the side of a brick building is that by the time the doors open, you are already in a great mood. You have surveyed your footwear choices and found them acceptable. You have decided the slight April chill is actually perfect concert weather. You have heard the person three spots ahead of you name their top five songs in order of importance and silently disagreed with them the entire way.

I went alone, which I used to think was a thing I couldn't do, go somewhere loud and crowded alone, but somewhere in the last year that changed. I don't know exactly when. I bought the ticket when they went on sale in February, one ticket, and it didn't feel like a consolation. It felt like the right number. I put it on the kitchen counter when I got home, next to the letter I still haven't opened, and then I ate dinner and went to bed.

Two hours in line and still this happy about it.

The show was in a small venue, the kind where the ceiling feels low and the sound bounces off everything and you can feel the bass in your sternum. I ended up closer to the front than I expected. At some point the person next to me and I both raised our arms at exactly the same moment during the same bridge and neither of us acknowledged it because we didn't have to.

Every word, every time.

I got home after midnight. My feet hurt in the specific way that tan ankle boots are not made for standing on concrete for three hours, which I knew going in and did anyway. Gerald was on the windowsill. The collapsed bowl was still there. The letter was still there. I drank a glass of water and stood in the kitchen for a minute not thinking about anything in particular, and then I went to bed, and it was one of the better Fridays I've had in a while.