Aren't we all basket cases?

This week I’m taking you to a Green Day concert, where I lost my mind to Basket Case, and somehow found something quiet in Wake Me Up When September Ends…

✦ LIFE — The Green Day

In 7th grade, I got my dad’s old computer.

I didn’t know what I was doing with it, not really. I’d just discovered YouTube, and for a while my entire world was three artists on loop — Green Day, Taylor Swift, Justin Bieber. I know. I know. Not exactly a cohesive brand, but 7th grade me was not taking notes on cohesion. She was just feeling things very loudly.

There was something about Billie Joe Armstrong that got me though. The eyeliner. The rawness. The kind of music that felt like it was written for someone who had a lot of feelings and nowhere to put them. I mean I was a fairly new teen, what else would you expect. I was deeply, completely that person.

Fast forward to New Year’s Day 2024. I’m on Ticketmaster in a split second — they’ve extended their tour, Atlanta’s on the list, and I book before I can think about it too hard. The concert is eight months away. Eight months of the quiet, low-key anticipation that hums in the background of ordinary days.

When August finally arrives, I take a half day, go home, get ready, and drive two hours to Atlanta alone. The whole way there I’m playing Boulevard of Broken Dreams on repeat — and I do mean repeat, as in, the same song, back to back, for two hours — while drumming the steering wheel like I’m Tré Cool. I don’t know what the other drivers thought. I choose not to think about it.

I get to the venue and discover I’m in the front. Not “pretty close.” Front. The lights go out. The whole stadium disappears.

And then Basket Case comes on. I completely lose it — dancing, singing, head bobbing, not a single thought in my head. Just rush and joy and the kind of happiness that takes over your whole body before you can decide if you’re okay with that. At some point Tré Cool came out in a bathrobe and performed All By Myself and honestly, same. Aren’t we all basket cases.

Then the energy shifted. Billie Joe picked up his guitar and the whole stadium seemed to exhale at once. Wake Me Up When September Ends. Everyone around me started swaying, singing softly, like we’d all quietly agreed to feel this one together. On the screens flanking the stage — a black and white photograph. Old. Classic. The exact image I’d stared at on album covers at thirteen. And he looks exactly the same.

That’s when the whole experience settled. Not landed — settled. Into my chest, quietly, like it had been waiting to.

I’m actually here.

Surreal. Emotional. Reminiscent. I didn’t want to leave for a single second — no food, no drinks, no bathroom, nothing that would cost me even one song I’d grown up singing. I stayed for all of it.

✦ GROWTH — When it’s just you, it’s all yours

There’s something people don’t tell you about doing things alone: it’s louder.

Not in a bad way. Louder in the sense that there’s no one to whisper to, no shared reaction to dilute the moment. Every feeling lands directly. You can’t half-experience something when you’re the only one experiencing it.

I’ve travelled solo for years. And what I’ve learned is that the solo adventure isn’t a consolation — it’s its own thing entirely. When you go alone, you stop negotiating. You leave when you want, stay as long as you want, cry in the front row if you want. You make all the choices, which means every single thing that happens belongs to you completely.

The concert was mine. The fireflies, the two-hour singalong drive, standing there when the lights went out — all of it, entirely mine.

There’s a version of us that waits for the right person to do things with. And sometimes that’s beautiful. But sometimes the right person is just you, showing up for yourself. Driving two hours to stand in a crowd of thousands, completely alone, and feeling more full than you have in months.

The solo trip isn’t about being brave. It’s about deciding that the thing is worth doing — and then doing it, even when it’s just you.

✦ ACTION — Go somewhere alone

This week: pick one thing you’ve been waiting for the “right moment” or the “right person” to do with you — and book it. A concert, a restaurant, a day trip, a film. Doesn’t have to be big. Just has to be yours.

And then tell me — what did you book? Comment and let me know.