I went to a concert once.
It was the first time in my life that I went to a concert on my own. No dad, no friends, no one. On top of that, because I’m nothing but extra, I also did this while I was living in another country. So, summed up: I went to a concert, on my own, in a country that I had only been living in for three months, that spoke a language that I barely understood. To be completely honest, I think I cried a lot in the forty-eight hours surrounding that concert because I don’t like being alone. (One might wonder why I subject myself to being on my own so much then, and I like to say that it’s because I’m learning and growing.) Anyway, I like going to concerts with friends or with my dad because there’s something inherently special about sharing such an experience with your loved ones. I also like going to concerts on my own, because I think that when you’re alone, you just feel everything more deeply somehow.
In order to understand this story, you need to understand two things:
One, there’s a song the artist sings, about how you can go through something really shitty and overcome it. And then you look back at it, and you think, well, damn. I did that. At least, that’s how I interpret it.
Two, when I was sixteen, I felt bad. Depressed-bad. I didn’t like myself, not even one bit, and I pushed myself deeper and deeper every day. I started wearing a bunch of bracelets on my left arm to cover up the scars. Years later, when the scars were faded and just a ghost of the past, I still felt deeply uncomfortable whenever I didn’t have a bracelet on my arm. It was protective and suffocating at the same time.
During this concert, I was standing in a crowd full of people who connected to those songs just like I did. And I didn’t know anyone, but I knew the words, and I knew my feelings. And when the artist sang these high walls, they came up short / now I stand taller than them all, I almost instinctively brought my left hand up in the air, and took off my bracelets. Ever since that day, I’ve worn them on my right hand instead.
I had been waiting, before that moment, for the day when I would finally feel strong enough, fixed enough, healed enough to take off my bracelets. But maybe, healing is not the endgame. Maybe, there won’t ever be a moment where I’ll think, “Oh, that’s it. I’ve healed now. I can leave that behind.” And maybe, there shouldn’t be. There’s probably a thousand metaphors I can whip out to describe what a healing process is like, but it comes down to this: this whole road that I’ve traveled on, it’s a part of me, and I’m allowed to be proud of it. I’m allowed to be proud of how far I’ve come. I don’t have to be ‘healed’ in order to feel that. And, most importantly, I don’t have to hide either until I feel sufficiently ‘healed’, because that day might never come.
And that’s okay
Because in the end, these high walls? They never broke my soul. And I’m allowed to be proud of that.
