Eddy Laughter

So I start to move and jump around a bit, and then I get that same sense of passion

power and freedom that I get when I listen to it normally, but it's, like, fresher or it was, like, revived or something.

And then someone kind of nudges me and, like, pushes me out of the way and, like, takes my front middle spot and I'm about to, like, get internally offended because conflict is scary.

And... But then I just see that this woman was just making space for her girlfriend to go up next to her and I'm like, this is a room full of punk queer women and I just...

I didn't know that was a thing and I just need a minute to like sit and process that and I look around and I see the girl from the train sitting on her dad's shoulders with like these big clunky headphones so her ears don't get all messed up and I would think that it would be weird for a kid to be here but she looks like she's exactly where she's supposed to be and I feel and I start to realize that I feel like I'm exactly where I'm supposed to be too.

And so I just let myself hold on to that.

And the last thing I want to do is run away and hide in a corner.

And I really feel like I belong here.

And I'm so happy and I've never felt this kind of happy before.

And then like the band is still in a show and there's like a mosh pit that's forming next to me, which I don't go over.

I don't go in cause I would get squashed like a little tiny person pancake, but I'm like on the side of it and I can still feel all of like the energy and from it.

And I'm just, I'm still like kind of like riding off of that excitement that I'm feeling and that everybody else is feeling as previously mentioned.

And then eventually.

the band, they stop playing, and I feel, and I come back to my body, and I really don't want to leave the room, but I realize that I have to, and I kind of look at the front woman, and I'm like, ah, and then I leave and get on the subway, and I'm looking at all these other people who are at the show with me, and I can tell because they're holding little various bits of merch or whatnot, and I'm looking at them, and I'm realizing that they're all like me in some way, and in so many different ways they're like me,

which I really didn't think was a thing and I didn't,

I didn't realize that I had something to grow up into before.

I don't really know what I thought would happen to me, but I just never had an image that my life could like go somewhere and I could stay being like the weirdo person I am and have it make sense in the world around me.

And I started to realize that the small feeling that I'm holding on to, I don't need it anymore.

And I never needed it.

And that I'm not that small person.