So I see I still haven’t mastered this blogging while travelling thing!  In fairness, I tried.  I had a post started on Sunday, and it sat there on my phone until late Monday night when we got home, but my heart wasn’t in it.  My family had an emergency going on back home, and blogging about my happy go lucky groupie life honestly just wasn’t gonna work.

But everything’s okay now, and even though it’s Friday, I wanted to get a quick note up before I head out on my long, long 7 1/2 hour drive home.  This week has been one of the best in a long time.  I keep going back to the analogy I made in my last post, that these shows are like going home after a long time away, because it is so true!  I have not seen Lindsey Buckingham, or Fleetwood Mac, in concert since their last tour in 2015.  My shows were in January of that year, too, so it just feels like forever.  In the meantime, I was lucky enough to see (and even meet!) Don Henley of the Eagles several times, and as I enjoyed every second of that, I didn’t realize I was suffering from any sort of tour withdrawal.

Boy was I wrong.

I couldn’t stop smiling throughout all 3 of the shows I was lucky enough to see this week, only one of which was originally planned.  For the first time in months, my mind went completely clear and I was able to just live in the moment, enjoy the show, and completely lose myself in the experience.

This isn’t a Lindsey Buckingham fan blog so I won’t get into everything right now, although it would be easy to do!  But the thing is, with everything going on at home, with everything that myself and my family have been through this year (it’s been a hard one), it was so incredible to just completely destress for 2 hours and not worry about a thing.  Not only that, but at the first show, Sunday in Detroit, I got to see friends that I haven’t seen in probably 10 years!  It’s amazing how the familiarity returns when you see people like that, isn’t it?  It’s just so wonderful to sit back, relax, catch up, and feel like no time has passed.  And to know that if it’s a year or two (hopefully not 10!) before I see them again, it’s okay.  There’s no pressure with “tour friendships”; we understand we live thousands of miles apart in different countries, and keep in touch through other ways in the meantime.

All in all, these trips are just a total break from reality, and that is so needed every so often.  I always say that everybody has “their thing”: I used to work with a guy who was obsessed with a certain NFL football team.  That was his thing, he travelled to their home stadium to see them, bought everything he could with their logo on it, and just lived and breathed that team.  That was his escape.  My husband goes fishing and plays guitar, that’s his.  This is mine.

But leaving is always the hardest thing.  I’m currently back in Mount Pleasant, Michigan, where the trip began, because I impulsively returned for the show that took place last night.  My husband didn’t have the whole week off like I did, so he is back home.  My best friend came with me to Toronto on Wednesday, but she works today too.  So I’m all by myself here in this beautiful hotel room in Fantasyland, and getting back in my car to face that 7.5 hour drive also means facing reality again.  I’ve never done a car trip this long completely by myself, by the way.  I’ve always been afraid to.

But when faced with the choice of go to a show, feel that freedom again, or give in to fear?  I will always choose the show.

I need to remember that in the real world, actually.  Fear, at least the anxiety kind, is a choice.  Find your “thing”, let it free you, and follow it.  All around the world if you need to.

And I guess, accept the fact that crying your eyes out on the way home is just part of the deal.