Eddy Laughter - Shared Thoughts

 

I'm on my way to see live music for the first time, and I'm so much more anxious than I think I have any right to be, because this band I'm about to see, I'm completely and utterly obsessed with. I have seen every interview. YouTube will physically let me watch and I listen to them so much at this point, it's probably doing something unhealthy to me. I don't know how that would work, but it's happening. [audience laughter] 

 

Because when I listen to them, all of a sudden, I feel like I'm big and I'm powerful and nothing can touch me when I'm walking down the street, which is really not something I feel ever at this point in my life. I feel so small and clunky and I don't fit into my own body, right? I'm starting to think that the middle school mentality that I'll never fit into any scenario, I go to is just going to be how I live my life and I feel like I just have to accept this at this point. 

 

So, it doesn't make any sense that I'm this anxious to see this band. But I'm trying to think about what I can expect and I'm just thinking about how in movies, punk shows are always like a bunch of loud, aggressive, intoxicated white boys. And that doesn't really seem like my scene. [audience laughter] I'm spiraling a bit, and I'm looking around on the train and I see this girl who's about 9 years or 11 years. I don't know how age works, but she's there and she's with her dad. And I'm like, “Wonder if they're going to the punk show [audience laughter] and then more of a mess.”

 

I'm still spiraling. And then I get off the train and we get to the venue. It doesn't look like a venue, but it definitely is a venue because I get inside and it's dark and everyone's bigger than me. It's really loud, and I pick a direction, and I just start walking and I see my eighth-grade math teacher [audience laughter]. Because of course, I see my eighth grade math teacher, so I go up and talk to my eighth-grade math teacher, [audience laughter] because that's how he wants to spend his Friday. 

 

I get up to him and it was a lot less awkward than you would think. He asked me about music and what bands I listen to, and I forget every single band I've ever heard of, ever. And I'm like, “This one.” [audience laughter] And thankfully, I'm interrupted by the first band that's up. They introduce themselves and they have this very nice welcoming speech about just accepting everyone who's at the show and I'm like, “Oh, wow.” And then, they start screaming, and they sound like they're wounded animals, [audience laughter] but then there's this weird pop music playing underneath it, and they're still screaming and then after each song ends, the front person goes, “Thank you,” and then continues screaming for the next song, and it's awesome. 

 

And then, this goes on for a bit and it stops, and then I creep out of the corner that I'm in and the next band is up and they again start screaming, of course, as you do. [chuckles] But these guys, they legitimately sound like they're demons. [audience laughter] And just from how they're moving to the way this man's eyes look and whatever the noise is that's coming out of him, and for some reason, I start to relax a bit and people are starting to dance around me in this way, where it feels like there's a big sense of unity in the room. I don't know where that's coming from. [audience laughter] And then, my band [chuckles] has gone up to tune their instruments, and I'm like, “Arghh.” And then, I text my friend and I'm like, “I see the front woman,” and she's like, “Argh” And I'm like, “Argh” this is all over text. [audience laughter] 

 

I'm so excited. I can feel everyone else is just as excited as I am. It feels like the room is buzzing, which is so crazy, because no one's ever excited about what I'm excited about. And then, they start playing, and it's like all of the air and sound gets sucked out of the room. We're all watching them, and we're all just so excited to be there, but it's beyond excitement at this point. It's like, everybody is where I am in my head right now, and we're all just there together and we're all having the same experience. 

 

They start to play more songs. They start to get into the music a little bit more, and everyone else around me is doing that as well, and they start to play my favorite songs and apparently everybody else's favorite songs too. And then, people are starting to dance more. There's this woman in front of me, and all she's doing is jumping up and down, which in any other context would look ridiculous, but it doesn't at all look ridiculous now and like, “I can do that too.” So, I start to move and jump around a bit. 

 

And then, I get that same sense of power and freedom that I get when I listen to it normally, but it's fresher or it was revived or something. And then, someone nudges me and pushes me out of the way and takes my front middle spot. I'm about to get internally offended, because conflict is scary. [audience laughter] But then, I just see that this woman was just making space for her girlfriend to go up next to her and I'm like, “This is a room full of punk, queer women.” 

 

I didn't know that was a thing. I just need a minute to sit and process that. I look around and I see the girl from the train sitting on her dad's shoulders with these big clunky headphones, so her ears don't get all messed up. I would think that it would be weird for a kid to be here, but she looks like she's exactly where she's supposed to be. I start to realize that I feel like I'm exactly where I'm supposed to be too. And so, I just let myself hold onto that. And the last thing I want to do is run away and hide in a corner. I really feel like I belong here. I'm so happy, and I've never felt this happy before. 

 

And then, the band still in a show, and there's a mosh pit that's forming next to me, which I don't go in, because I would get squashed like a little tiny person pancake. But I'm on the side of it and I can still feel all the energy from it. I'm still riding off of that excitement that I'm feeling and that everybody else is feeling, as previously mentioned. And then, eventually the band, they stop playing, and I come back to my body and I really don't want to leave the room, but I realize that I have to. I look at the front woman and I'm like, “Haa”

 

And then, I leave and get on the subway and I'm looking at all these other people who are at the show with me and I can tell, because they're holding little various bits of merch or whatnot. I'm looking at them and I'm realizing that they're all like me in some way. And in so many different ways, they're like me, which I really didn't think was a thing. I didn't realize that I had something to grow up into before. I don't really know what I thought would happen to me, but I just never had an image that my life could go somewhere and I could stay being the weirdo person I am and have it make sense in the world around me. 

 

I started to realize that the small feeling that I'm holding onto, I don't need it anymore and I never needed it. And that I'm not that small person, and I'm not going to be small forever, and I don't need to be and that I'm going to be okay and it's just so crazy to think about. Thank you.