The Concert I Never Let Myself Want...

I searched for it myself. That's the part that still gets me.

Taylor Swift announced the Eras Tour, and I went to her website (on my own, nobody told me to...) and looked up where she was stopping. Sure enough, she'd be in Philadelphia for two shows. Less than an hour from my house.

I felt the tingle. That little spark of excitement...like high school Nora, the one who'd been listening to Taylor since we were both young, naive, lovesick girls...was waking up for a second.

And then the weight landed.

But I'm not going.

Not "I probably won't go." Not "let me think about it." Just...I'm not going. Before I even gave myself a chance to want it.

The excuses stacked up fast. It's too expensive. I don't like driving into the city. There's no way I'd even get a ticket. And the one that felt the most convincing: I'm not the type of person who goes to a concert like that.

(As if "that type of person" was some category I didn't qualify for....ha!)

But I wasn't being practical. I was terrified...terrified of the crowd, of the heat, of being trapped in a stadium full of people with nowhere to go when my body decided to turn on me. Because at that point, even the slightest discomfort could spiral into full-blown panic. I didn't trust my own body. And I'd been shrinking my world for so long that "I'm not the type of person who..." had started to feel like a fact instead of a way to disguise fear.

So I didn't get tickets. I didn't even let myself try.

Months later, I was still watching clips from the shows. Fans showing up fully as themselves...exchanging friendship bracelets...celebrating literal eras of their own lives through Taylor's music. All types of people. Not just the young, hip, cool crowd I'd convinced myself it was for. Just people coming together to celebrate the eras of life and their love for music and community.

Which is...exactly what I love.

Honestly, I cried. More than once. Not because I missed a concert, but because I was witnessing something so powerful and so aligned with who I actually am...and I hadn't even allowed myself to consider that I could have been part of it.

That heaviness — the regret of knowing you missed something once-in-a-lifetime, not because you couldn't go, but because you wouldn't let yourself — that's what cracked something open in me.

I never wanted to feel that again. I didn't want to be my own roadblock anymore.

So I started small. Ridiculously small.

I went to a farmers market in the city on a hot Saturday morning. Crowds, heat, vendors, noise...everything that used to send me spiraling. But this time I walked in with one thought: I want to be here. I'm choosing to be here.

I found where the water was, I gave myself permission to step out if I needed space, and when the stress crept in...I didn't fight it. I acknowledged it and thought "Okay, I feel this. What do I need right now?"

I started considering those moments as experiments. Not goals or tests I could pass or fail, but characterization experiments...because the only job is to observe and test hypotheses of what I needed and when to build tolerance. I did this as often as possible and with increasing difficulty: A crowded grocery store. Sitting in the heat. A professional soccer game. Each one a question: Can I be here and be okay?

Most of the time the answer was yes. One time, in a checkout lane (you know, when you're squeezed between someone in front of you and someone behind you in that narrow aisle and all the groceries are crammed on the conveyor belt? yeah.), the panic showed up anyway. And it crushed me. I thought I'd been making all this progress, and suddenly I was right back at the start.

But that was the lesson, too. Progress isn't a straight line. It has dips, but the dips don't erase the climb.

I didn't understand back then that my fear didn't look like fear...It looked like a perfectly reasonable list of excuses....It looked like "I'm not the type of person who..." It looked like searching for tour dates while already knowing I wouldn't go...It looked like not allowing myself to even know what I really wanted.

Knowing yourself well enough — your wants, your needs, your emotions — that you can actually move toward the things that bring you joy...that's self-fluency. And it doesn't have to start with some big, brave leap. It can start with a farmers market on a Saturday morning and one small thought:

I want to be here.

✨ What's the thing you've been telling yourself you're "not the type" for? What would it look like to just...try?✨

🪷 Nora