{Photo by Matt. Editing by me.}
Thank you for indulging my last post - full of apathetic ranting. Sometimes it helps to not care for a while. It clears the air.
So...I made it to the other side of my comprehensive exam! The first few days of researching and writing were actually lovely. It was a luxury to clear my schedule, dig into a completely new topic area, and have the time to focus on one paper. Matt made me meals. Monday I went to get a massage with a few friends for the first time in my life. Then of course reality hit in and the deadline loomed, so the last few days were not quite as pleasant, but it wasn't supposed to be easy.
Sometime during the week Matt began talking about how he was going to get us tickets to go see Keane. We went a couple years back and had an amazing time together. So Tuesday when he said, "I got us tickets for Thursday night," I was like, "Thursday night?"
My exam was due Thursday at 5pm (and no, I did not get it done hours ahead of time) and I had to attend a party with my cohort at the house of our program chair. More than that, I knew I would be exhausted. My brain reduced to mush.
Still, I met up with Matt after the party. We got to the concert right at 9 as they were going on.
Even though I was exhausted and I had to lean against my seat most of the show to keep myself from sitting down in the 6th row, I'm glad we got to go. I'd been writing all week about youth policy in the UK so listening to a British rock band hours after I turned in my paper was a fun way to wrap up the experience.
Two years ago when we saw them at the same venue on a similarly hot late spring night, life was different. I guess better in some ways. Worse in others. And through my fogginess last night, I just keep thinking that I'm living my life. It's that simple. That's what we're all doing.
The lead singer kept saying thank you so much to the audience. Maybe because Matt's been around a lot of musicians who have hit it big and some who are trying to hold on, I always look up at young famous musicians on stage and think about how they deal with it all. The highs must be amazing. But it must be so difficult to find yourself during and after the lights fade, and to know how to proceed. Life is uncertain. You hope there is another album or another tour, but there are no guarantees for what's next. That uncertainty could drive a person mad. So I appreciated that he was thankful in the moment.
I hope when the lights fade musicians find ways to keep making music. To keep doing what it is they do. Because it's not really about the audience, although that's always nice.
I was left with an enormous sense of gratitude for accomplishing something, and now moving forward to whatever is on the other side. I'm getting to live my life, the good and the bad of it, and having the opportunity to proceed.
