Last night was pretty amazing. The concert exceeded my expectations, and with the exception of one ear-piercing opening act, it was a good time start to finish. I’d have done well to actually bring the ear plugs to the concert, that I had made a point of packing for that purpose.  Adulthood fail. lol

What we understand ourselves to have seen can be very subjective.

I was tired well-past the point of cognitive impairment becoming obvious, and somewhat intoxicated, when the concert ended. Whether I was smoking cannabis myself or not would be entirely irrelevant, considering the quantity of it being smoked in the venue last night, generally, and there was definitely a sense that we were all so very high.  The intensity of the bass was definitely turned up, somewhere beyond “mind-blowing”, more on the order of “weapons grade”, or perhaps “pharmaceutical quality” – it’s the part of music that is most like a drug, for me.  Some people don’t care for bass, don’t listen for it, don’t groove on it. We’re each having our own experience. Some people were there for the lights. Some for the words. Some for the community. Some, perhaps, for the product placement. There were a lot of people there, each having their own experience. We were all in it together.

At the end of the evening, I struggled to communicate simple things, or use familiar tools. Navigating in the crowd was quite difficult; I relied on following my traveling partner. The noise of voices, emotions, and bodies in motion was just too much for me at that point, and I couldn’t really filter it out, or process any of the events or images of the evening… and remarkably, I managed to avoid any sort of meltdown (admittedly, I had a moment or two of irritable frustration, but whether those were my own, or the emotions of my traveling partner having to cope with my challenges, too, is not so clear now, and they were only moments, anyway).

We had gotten a room, so avoided a long drive home. I don’t sleep well in strange places. I often just don’t sleep in strange places. An unidentified hum-buzz-whine of an audible frequency continued through the night; it would turn out to be the mini-fridge. I laid awake most of the night, content, quiet, existing in stillness with my thoughts: recollections of the evening, musings about the new job, some jokes, some stories, love poems… I may have written and rewritten my “to do list” a number of times in my head, in the darkness. I planned my future. I planned my future on alternate timelines. I budgeted an unexpected (fictional) windfall. I fell asleep a couple times, deeply enough to get some rest. Of the possible 7 hours I could have slept from the time I laid down, until I got up to dress for breakfast, just at 8:00 am, I got at least 4 hours, I think. It’s enough to get by on for a day, but tonight will not be a late night. lol

I got home with today planned pretty well… Before I ever sat down to write, my plans unraveled completely. My ride fell through. I don’t mind taking public transit – and I found out soon enough to make that change – but it means giving up the nap I had just been about to settle in for, eagerly. I’m tired. Tired is okay, though, and tired isn’t a permanent thing, if there is a future opportunity for adequate rest (and there is – I call it “night time”, and hope to be sleeping, then. LOL). I make a cup of coffee, and consider the afternoon, and the weekend ahead. My brain is a little numb. More coffee? More coffee. I smirk at myself, aware that my state of fatigue will likely make me a more amenable, docile patient, more willing to simply follow directions, and comply with requests without chatter. On the other hand… it may mean that I don’t think to ask questions that need asking, which is something to be mindful of. More coffee.

Here comes today… am I ready for it? I’m at least okay right now… 🙂