It's become trendy to empower each other and I couldn't be happier about it. Showing how much we care for eachother and supporting our friends' initiatives is a healthy way to ensure that the entire world will grow and change in a positive way. However, while empowering someone else is important, we tend to forget to empower ourselves.
Today, we spend so much time online that even when we are alone, we never truly are. The truth is you can't empower yourself when you can't find your own independence.
The only way to grow is to take yourself just beyond your comfort zone until you do finally become comfortable. I found myself in quite the predicament the other day, but I learned quite a lot from it.
Two hours into a road trip, alone, I received a text telling me that my friend would not be meeting me at the concert venue when I arrived because her ride bailed on her. This mean I was going to a show entirely alone. I was too far from home to turn around, but just far enough away to make the next hour and a half just slightly miserable.
I had to grasp the idea of going to a concert alone. This wasn't the first time I had done it, but usually, I did so at a small punk concert in some basement venue where things didn't feel quite so cliquey. This time, however, I was heading to KFest… a pop festival in upstate New York, somewhere I had never been before. So, it was an understatement to say that I was super uncomfortable when I pulled into the parking lot and found myself surrounded by groups of fangirls.
The worst part? I received a notification that my AirBNB plans had fell through. I literally had nowhere to sleep after the show and had just accepted that I'd probably need to pull over somewhere and crash in the backseat of my car because there was no way I could afford a hotel room.
And while this was really just one of the most unfortunate circumstances I could have been in, part of me truly felt free. After glaring at my phone's notifications for several minutes, I took the time to look up. I saw the beauty in the forest around me in the middle of an unfamiliar mountain. I noticed that while I was alone, I was free, too.
I took a breath of mountain air and exhaled my anxiety, which was something extremely rare for me. That's when things began to fall into place for me. Someone on Twitter offered me a free hotel room that they had an extra night of reservation that they wouldn't use. I found a cheap ticket upgrade online and ended up with floor seats (my original tickets I had been given for free). I realized that the venue I was at was actually the home of the 1969 Woodstock.
I made friends, too. I was alone, but had the chance to mingle freely. I broke down my mentally conceived notions of fangirl cliques and tried my best to be open to everyone. The best part? I was able to see and get noticed by so many musicians that meant the world to me: In Real Life, Why Don't We, 5 Seconds of Summer, Liam Payne…
By the end of the night, I went back to the hotel room that I had been given the key to and was at peace. Even driving back the next day wasn't an awful feat. I made the whole trip on my own and realized that things truly do work out if you let them.
Amongst all of this, I found my independence. I believe you truly don't know freedom until you can travel on your own. I spent a whole year in New York City for college and haven't felt true freedom like what I was feeling in that moment.
So, take time to be with just yourself. This doesn't always need to mean hiding away in your room scrolling through Tumblr. It also means taking yourself out on dates and traveling somewhere new. It means listening to your heart and following through.
