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Taylor Pawlowski

Dr. Cassel

English 101

10 July 2019

The Uncomfortable Musical Memoir

It was about two years ago, in the beginning of February, when I vividly remember laying on the

ground of my dorm room floor talking to my mom on the phone. I was telling her about how I

felt like I was in sort of a slump. Like any other mom does when something is wrong, she started

drilling me with questions about how I felt,, but I couldn’t fully describe to her what I was

feeling. I went on to tell her that I felt like I was struggling with school as well as having a hard

time with my friends and boyfriend. But one thing I did know is that I felt homesick.

The long holiday months of Thanksgiving and Christmas were over, and it was time to be

back at school for a while and that slump feeling hit me like a truck. I was having a hard time

adjusting to the fact that I couldn’t wake up in my own bed with my dogs next to me but wake up

in a dorm room in a place that didn’t quite feel like home. It was then when I admitted that to my

mom, she suggested that I come home for the weekend to relax from what was providing me

with stress. So then then I packed up some clothes, got in my car, and drove home for the

weekend.

Pittsburgh

I drove about 3 hours and 40 minutes’ home from Springfield,, Ohio,, to Pittsburgh on that

Friday. I chose to take Friday completely for myself. I was able to relax, get some school work
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done, and hang out with my dogs. It felt amazing,, but I still couldn’t fully understand why I felt

the way I did.

Saturday morning my mom and I headed to downtown Pittsburgh to walk around and eat. We

decided that we would go to the candle lab to make candles. We mixed together a ton of different

scents and tried combinations to see which best smelling scents went great together. Once we

were done making candles, my mom suggested we walk around the little shops and find

somewhere to eat. I felt and looked exhausted and uninterested but my mother insisted. We

found a pizza restaurant so we sat down and started talking. My mom was asking me questions

about school, my classes, and my social life at school. I went on to tell her that I loved school

and my friends,, but my classes were giving me a hard time and I felt stuck. I felt like I was

being indecisive in a lot of areas in my life.

Then I got a phone call from one of my best friend’s sister, Kristina. Kristina is my best

friend’s older sister whomm I have known ever since I was around 10 years old. She has babysat

me and my friends, driven me to practices and games as well as become like an older sister to me

over the years. I answered her phone call and her immediate question was, “Hey! What’s up?

Are you at home in Pittsburgh?”

I said “yes, why?” not thinking anything out of the ordinary.

She explained to me that she had 2 concert tickets to a concert in Johnstown Ohio, which was

an hour away from Pittsburgh, and asked me if I wanted to go.

Originally her friend was supposed to go with her,, but she couldn’t anymore but she still had

the two tickets and a hotel room booked for that Saturday night. She proceeded to ask me what

my plans were for the night and I was flustered. I was thinking of all the factors and it
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overwhelmed me. I found myself struggling to make a decision and get out of my comfort zone

of the fact that my plans had to change. It wasn’t because I would be going with my best friend’s

sister or that it was a concert, but it was because I have been struggling with being uncomfortable

things and change the past month while at school. I was conflicted.

Any other person would be ecstatic and immediately want to go,, but I took a deep breath and

said, “Well who is the concert for?”

Sshe said “Luke Combs! He’s a newer country singer you’ll like him.”

After talking to her on the phone and talking to my mom about my potential plans, I basically

forced myself to go. As uncomfortable as I felt, I said,, “Sure, what time are you going to pick

me up?”

The Concert

Kristina and I drove about an hour to the hotel and got ready for the concert. In the car, she

played all of his songs on the radio,, and we listened to them the entire ride. I started to sing and

like some of his songs. We arrived at the hotel,, and we had to rush to unpack our things in the

hotel room and get ready before the concert started. We were running late,, and I was feeling

anxious. As we were running into the venue, I could hear him to start to sing. We had to get to

our seats quickly, so to make things easier, Kristina went off to get us food and drinks while I

took our tickets to try and find our seats. This was already a ball of disaster. I started to think

why did I agree to this? I came home to relax and figure out why I felt the way I did and this was

just making me feel a lot worse than I did before I came home.

When I found our seats, I saw that somebody was puking all over the ground and near a trash

can in the seats we had tickets for. There was a crowd of people trying to find their seats and
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theythey pusheded past me. I just sat down at the closest seats to ours. I frantically texted

Kristina and told her what had been happening. When she found me and when I saw her face, she

was angry.

Kristina and I got up to find someone who worked at the venue to help us quickly considering

the concert has already begun. With rage and anger, she explained to the two security guards that

we traveled and paid a lot of money to be here and because of other people we had no seats for

this concert. The two security guards were no help. They had called over their boss to speak with

us and then with the craziness of the concert already, the head of security gave us pit section

wrist bands and lead us to a standing spot right in front of the stage.

I started to look around me and something instantly clicked. I could see everything

around me. I saw smiling faces and singing voices. The venue was not as nearly as big as I

thought before. It was a sea full of people in their seats but next to us was a smaller crowd of

people standing and singing to Luke Combs. The faces in the crowd looked so happy. They were

there to genuinely listen to his music and have a good time and that’s exactly what I did. There

was no better feeling. It’s the feeling of having a bunch of your best friends in one room listening

to everyone’s favorite song. Luke Combs was not doubt the best musician and concert performer

that I have ever seen and he has changed my emotions ever since.

The Comfortable Outcome

On Sunday when iiIt was time to drive back to school, I downloaded all his songs, put

them on repeat, and blasted every song in my car. I learned every word to every song. I couldn’t

believe that I did what I did that weekend. I left school and came back feeling like a new and

refreshed person. I was almost front row at a concert, in an unknown place, listening to a country
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singer I have only heard hours before. I could have felt more than uncomfortable, but I felt the

opposite. The weekend may have started with things that did not go the way that I originally had

planned but one thing that was right is how comfortable and happy I felt to be at that concert. I

left that concert with not only a new favorite country singer, but with an open mind. I felt my

comfortability in Luke Comb’s songs. To this day, his songs continue to help me feel

comfortable and happy with how everything is falling into place in my life and that its okay to be

uncomfortable.