I am a huge concert freak, and I've been to probably about 200 concerts now in my lifetime, including at least 40 for my favorite country artist, Eric Church (check him out, www.ericchurch.com!!). I just love the feel of good live music, and as Third Eye Blind would say, "the four right chords can make me cry." So, when my friend John asked me if I wanted to see the legendary Elton John in concert for FREE, I knew I had to clear my schedule to experience this in person. Special shout-out to John and his mom for being my lovely concert dates, thank you so much for bringing me!
The concert started out AMAZING when Elton John's openers came out, 2Cellos. They also played during Elton John's set, but during their own set, they played just two songs on the cello... wait for it.... Smooth Criminal by Michael Jackson, and Smells like Teen Spirit by Nirvana! It was seriously amazing to hear them play cellos like electric guitars, and they weren't bad to look at either. Apparently, they have an album coming out... so I must check that out.
On to Elton John. He was seriously amazing. He played for probably 2 and a half hours almost straight through... I don't know how he has that kind of energy! I really loved hearing "Mona Lisas and Mad Hatters" and "Your Song" live, along with "Candle in the Wind." He sounded great stripped down and simple, but almost NOTHING he played was that way. Everything was LOUD, LOUD, LOUD. Produced. Electric guitars and loud keyboards. And the songs I didn't know? I really just didn't like them! I could not have been more surprised. And I could not have been more surprised by how LONG the whole thing felt... I couldn't wait to go home to sit in the quiet!
So here's what I learned:
1. An artist can be good live, and I may still not enjoy it. That seems so simple, but I was really surprised that I could still appreciate him, and just not enjoy it overall.
2. Elton John must have been on drugs. My mom was not surprised by this conclusion, but I was!
3. Music CAN be too loud for my ears. (And I've lost some hearing from concerts and still don't usually think it's too loud... so yeah... old men can rock!)
4. I don't need to go to EVERY live show that I have the opportunity to go to.
So next time, I'll be saying thanks but no thanks to Elton John!
Tomorrow is my dear Aunt Kathy's birthday. She's a big part of my inspiration for this project, and every day. I have a hard time really putting into words how important she was in my life... but she deserves that, so I'll do my best. She was selfless. She always took care of everyone else. She put others first. She worked incredibly hard. She made me feel loved. When I would sleep over her house, she had this way of making it feel like home. She would spread out a million blankets and make a bed for me. I loved just the smell of their house, the smell of the soap I would use there, and me and my brother reaaaaally loved her snack closet! She always came incredibly prepared, and had anything you could ask for inside her purse. Simply because she thought of others. And her cooking- the best! Besides my parents, she was singlehandedly the most supportive person in my life, and when someone is there at every event- every concert, every high school ceremony, every holiday, you just expect them to always be there, and you can't imagine it being any different. And not only that, but she was fun to be around, so we always wanted to be with her too. As an adult, we went to concerts together, all of us as a family, and one of my favorite more recent memories is her yelling at Keith Urban to get him to look at us. Wild. She has always inspired me to be a better, more prepared, more thoughtful person, but I never thought I would have to learn the lesson of loss from her too.
I'm by nature an extremely anxious person, and when she was diagnosed with cancer, I thought it would tear me apart. And at times, it did, as I'm sure it did for all of us. But cancer is funny. You can hate it, curse it and despise it, but it will teach you things too. It will teach you that life is unpredictable and out of control. Sometimes, it will teach you what it's like to be without someone. And, sometimes it will teach you that you should appreciate the moments you have, before they're gone.
Now that my aunt is gone, I wish I could go back to every minute I spent at the hospital with her, getting chemotherapy of all things. That was time I wouldn't trade for anything, and that was time that I knew I had to appreciate because she was sick. And now that my aunt is gone, and I still have life, I know that I have to make it good. I need to live a life that's worth living because I'm lucky to have it, even if it's a little darker now without her. I know that her light reaches me still when I can find happiness in the little things in my day, when I feel pleasure in the things I love to do and the people I love to see.
I'm not perfect, and there have been a lot of days where I have laid around, and not made the most of life. There have been a lot of days where I thought that I hadn't done anything worth making her proud of, and I wasn't proud of myself either. There have been many days where I have felt sorry for myself because I'm still alone, or because I've lost her, or because I don't have my career figured out. But, that's what this project is about. Maybe I only get around to 20 tiny adventures this year, but there's 20 days where I challenged myself, and 20 days where I tried to make the most of life. Sometimes, in the face of adversity, people rise to the challenge. That's who I want to be. Someone who appreciates life. Someone who she can be proud of.
