I’ve known this for some time, but that Motorhead concert in Glasgow served to remind me I “share” far more than anyone cares to know. I knew full well that more than half the people I gushed to about this show were well past the point of caring about any of the bands I went to see, let alone traveling out of the country to see them. Gush I did, however, and it took me nearly a month to figure out why.
I wasn’t really trying to convince anyone else that this show mattered; I was trying to reassure myself that I’m still the person I’ve always thought I was.
When I was in my early twenties, I used to say that I was striving to live the life others said they wish they could. Back then, I retreated from this rather pretentious position when it occurred to me that I was spending money on stuff that only I cared about and nobody really envied me my life.
My next premise was that I made the choices I do so I could tell good stories in the aftermath of each trip, concert, watershed event, or failed romance. No matter how sad or disappointing an event was, at least I’d get a good story out of it, and that makes everything worth enduring, even heartbreak.
Many years have elapsed since. I have had a good story to tell, and as a consequence, my audiences have grown sparse. I surmise that I trumpeted the motorhead show in an effort to set the stage for the next set of stories I could tell on my return from Glasgow.
Too bad I don’t really have any good stories after the motorhead show. Glad I ate well and took photos. Else, I’d be tempted to write off the Glasgow trip as a narrative failure, a waste of money, and firm proof that I have nothing left to share. Oh, well.
