The last few weeks have been exhausting. I’ve been working almost round the clock trying to fundraise my tuition money for France while also visiting family and trying to spend quality time with them while I’m still in Canada.
I’ve been feeling tired and not a little discouraged.
My tuition is due tomorrow and I’m still short $3,500. I’ll be borrowing the final sum. Dreaming this big is…hard. It can be painful to dare for something that feels so huge, to expand and expand and expand.
And while it’s exactly what I want, I’ve been fighting old patterns and old ways of thinking to do it. It’s been the icky, hard part of transformation.
So by yesterday, I was at the end of my rope and almost everything was making me teary.
Enter: Frank
When I came home from France last year, Jesse introduced me to a musician called Frank Turner, and it was love-at-first-hearing.
I have spent the last 6 months listening non-stop to Frank. I needed the life-affirming, stick-it-to-the-man, find-hope-love-and-joy essence of his music. I needed that reminder daily, as I worked to get myself back to France this year.
There have been some really hard times the past few months, and Frank’s music helped me through it.
So back in March, when we saw that he was playing in Toronto, we instantly bought tickets.
Last night was the concert.
It almost didn’t happen
I was running late all day. Then we missed our first train up to Toronto. I was so worried that we wouldn’t make it in time, and I was already a ball of raw nerves. Everything just felt too hard. I wanted to sleep for 3 weeks.
Somehow, we made it to Toronto in time, and I even had time to buy a t-shirt. But I was still feeling overwrought.
Then Frank got on stage.
Within 15 seconds of those opening chords, I was weepy. And then when he hit these lyrics:
I am sick and tired of people who are living on the B-list. They’re waiting to be famous and they’re wondering why they do this. And I know I’m not the one who is habitually optimistic, but I’m the one who’s got the microphone here so just remember this:
Life is about love, last minutes and lost evenings, about fire in our bellies and furtive little feelings, and the aching amplitudes that set our needles all a-flickering, and help us with remembering that the only thing that’s left to do is live. After all the loving and the losing, the heroes and the pioneers, the only thing that’s left to do is get another round in at the bar.
I pretty much just lost my shit and cried and clapped and hollered for the rest of the show.
I felt my heart filling up and was reminded of all of the reasons that I do this:
because I believe in something bigger than me, because I believe in you, dear friend, and I believe that life can be wonderful despite the pain and that I want to inspire people and bring people hope and happiness and comfort.
Kind of like what Frank was doing with his music.
This song is my theme song
There is one song in particular that pretty much sums up me and my life.
Shockingly, I cried while he sang this one too.
So, dear Mr. Turner, thank you for reminding this artist why she does what she does, on a day when she really, really needed it.
Me, after the Frank concert