The Best Day of My Life

About a week ago, I considered how ludicrous some of the comments I say to myself are when I converse alone. This was triggered by the series finale of Scrubs, a show that adhered itself to the hearts of my roommates and I of late. We finished it last Thursday, and I laid awake after we turned off the DVD just staring at the ceiling, watching my future play on a video screen before my eyes, feeling as if I had just seen an old friend off forever, just said farewell to embark on a brand new stage of life from which I would not be coming back. I was, needless to say, in a very melancholy, reminiscent mood (I use any excuse I can to get into these) as I drove alone to San Antonio, and I thought, Scrubs is the perfect show. The perfect show. Immediately after I realized how ridiculous that sounded. So simple, so easily declared. I talked to a friend of mine about how we make ungrounded, impossible-to-back-up claims like that, and proceeded to tell her things like "Texas is the best" all weekend.

Despite saying that, I come to you now with a claim that I know with absolute certainty is the truth: I just experienced the best concert of my life. Blink-182 came through The Woodlands, Texas tonight on their reunion tour after breaking up about six years ago. To give you the background, they are not the first band that really turned me on to music (that was MxPx) nor the first band I could credit with changing the direction of my music taste (that would be Relient K or Switchfoot) but rather the band whom I found shining and profound among all the other good bands I liked, like a pearl buried in a pile of pretty shells. This band was irreverent, immature, rebellious, rippling with angst, and imbued with all the energy of being a teenager. The last two CD's they released before disbanding defined a period of my life. Every single song I could sing along with, and they were the first CD's I bought that were incredible in their wholeness, for each song, rather than for a few standout tracks. I stopped listening to Blink in high school and only pulled them out of the closet again once I went into my first year of college, and the magic of being young returned and was made stronger by the curious fact that the music was still good. Then, a year and a half later, came the unbelievable news that this Super Band was un-disbanding, was in fact re-banding, and coming near our town in the fall, and we bought tickets and reassured ourselves it was actually going to happen. This concert came at a time when my college career had begun its downturn and was barreling towards a precipice called Real Life under which sits a pit called Responsibility. Tonight, we stopped the train, and sang together as one gigantic crowd.

Most of our conversation during the show consisted of us saying things like "DUUUDDE!!!" and "YEEEEEAAAAHHHHH!!!" and "AAAAAAAAGGGGHHHHHHH!!!" with gestures that involved holding our hands palms up with the fingers curled like some kind of Emperor impersonation while screaming our joy towards the cloudy night sky. Every single song, every note, brought back the past eight and a half years. My friend and I screamed every word aloud, hurling the lyrics up in little packages filled with all the stored-up passion and anger I never expressed due to my lack of a rebellious stage, coupled with all the affinity these words had become gilded with over the years. It was like we knew there wasn't anything holding us back, like there wasn't a tomorrow (as cheesy as that sounds, it was true); we were watching a resurrected band. Their humor was dirty. The crowd was pungent, smelling thickly of plant smoke. The lawn was less of a lawn and more a gigantic pit of mud. I had never before felt such a feeling of I-CAN'T-FREAKING-BELIEVE-I-AM-HERE-AAAGGGHHH!!! The place was packed with people, hands raised and rocking out, from stage to farthest back corner. I said goodbye to expectations for graduation, for my wedding day, apologizing to the future wifey. I knew with a sinking and elated feeling that no day would ever beat this one. And what do you do on your last night left worth living? You SING! And we DID!

Leaving was surreal, and getting off 105 onto Highway 6 we joined a close-knit caravan of six cars traveling together through the night, united in our common love for the band that represented our past.

My roommate and I have been shooting knowing glances back and forth. Best Night Ever, we say. That was the Perfect Show, we say. And I know it is true.