By: Maggie Delaney ‘14
At the beginning of June, my sister and I bought our three day Bumbershoot tickets. We like to go to concerts and music festivals together; it’s kind of our thing. We were really looking forward to it and we planned out which groups we would see each day. After the first day we went home feeling even more excited for the days to come.
On Sunday, I woke up feeling really bad. I was coming down with a bad cold, and my body let me know it all day long. I ended up just going to FUN with my parents. However, I wasn’t feeling my best and after FUN was done, I just wanted to go home. That night, I went to sleep, sure that I wasn’t going to go back to Bumbershoot the next day. Kate came home raving about Death Cab for Cutie, and I felt chastised and saddened by my decision to skip Sunday night. In the morning, I woke up still unsure whether I would attend Bumbershoot that day or not. However, I found myself standing in line for Alt-J and MGMT. I was eager to see both bands play, but I had a sore throat, a headache, and my nose was running. By the time we got into the arena and sat down in the crowd of teenagers, cramped and uncomfortable, I was feeling all the effects of my sickness and none of the usual excitement.
This all changed the minute Alt-J stepped on stage. Kate and I found ourselves about ten rows from the front. I forgot about my sickness and my discomfort and lost myself in the spectacle. I’m not one for pushing my way to the front of anything, and I didn’t make that my goal this night. However, I am pretty small, and somehow, in the ebb and flow of the crowd, Kate and I found ourselves in the first two rows as MGMT played in front of us. As we drove home, windows down in the cool summer air, darkness and lights rushing by, I could no longer tell if my throat was sore from my cold, or hoarse from singing. The pressure in my brain had lifted and I felt much better. I thought to myself, “There’s a lesson in this.”
Very rarely do I have an experience and immediately understand what I was supposed to have learned from it. But this was one of those times that I did understand. It’s very cliché, but life is what you make it. And a day that started out awful could end up being one of the best nights of your life. Part of having a good life is having the courage and the toughness to stick it out to the end. The thing is, you never know until you try. I could have gone to Bumbershoot and had the worst experience of my life. And that would have been unpleasant. But I didn’t. I stuck it out and I had a great time with my sister. I realized that I can’t be passive about life. It’s not just going to happen to me. I have to happen to it. I would like to keep that in mind this year. It is my last year at Prep and if I don’t have the courage to take a chance and maybe have the best year ever, I will never know what it could have been. So, go to the concert, and see what happens.
