Ed Sheeran, JioGarden, November 19, 2017.

I wore red lipstick and a red dress and a lotion that made my bare arms and legs shimmer in the dim-lit darkness; kajal and mascara and a band that declared me a superstar. 

I stood in line for six hours, with determination and confidence I had forgotten I could possess, and also with my three most favourite brownies from Theobroma (for the record, these are the millionaire, the red velvet, and the cookie, in that order, although I am convinced each time I have it that I like the cookie brownie more in theory than in taste). 

I joked, laughed and danced with strangers, with the college kids with lamer puns and greater fanaticism than even I; and the girl who'd come here all by herself from Delhi, who was awkward in a way that would have been very familiar to my near-friendless fourteen year old self, whose story I wanted to hear and write. 

I enjoyed the opening act, Lauv, as one enjoys all music that is not noise, and sang along to the one song I knew (I like me better). Things were fine. 

And then he came on stage, and it all changed. 

_________

I've been looking for perspective everywhere. I've talked to older people and younger people and peers and colleagues; parents and counsellors and myself; strangers on Tinder and my best friends. I've looked for it in books and in memes; in the ocean waves and in city lights. 

I did not expect to find it at a concert.

I should have, though. I went to the concert because I love Ed Sheeran; I love Ed Sheeran the way I do partly because I have the most mainstream taste on the planet, but mostly because, no matter what he sings, Ed can pull from within me the feelings I need, and banish the mental clutter I really don't need. His words are specific, his songs situational, and yet, whether I'm homesick or heartbroken or just lost deep within myself, he can pull me out - paint me that larger picture I can never quite capture by myself, make me understand, acknowledge, absorb all those comforting things I know in theory, but cannot feel in practice. 

He can make it okay for things not to be okay (which, let's face it, is how things usually are). 

_________

He sang Castle on the Hill, and Tenerife Sea, and Thinking Out Loud, and Perfect. Shape of You and Eraser and Galway Girl and A-Team. You Need Me, I Don't Need You. 

And somehow, in all the singing along and dancing and feeling and hugging and holding hands, somehow, magically, miraculously, inexplicably, he turned lead into gold. 

Somehow, standing there, squashed between the balustrade and the heaving masses, I was no longer a lost, overemotional, fucked up twenty something questioning every aspect of her life to the point of perpetual misery. I was a kid, an adult, a complete person; not a daughter or an ex or a sister or a friend, not an employee or a lawyer or intelligent or dumb, not a good writer or a bad one. Not a label or a generational stereotype; just...a person, with all the complexity and simplicity that involves. 

Yes, I was young and lost and confused and at least a little bit fucked up. Yes, I was old and had lost so many years, months, minutes to useless endeavours, time and energy and optimism I'd never get back. Yes, I had said and done awful things, and had awful things said and done to me. 

But that was okay. This was life, and we didn't get to type out a draft and review it thrice before finally deciding on a version we could look back on and regret. We had to do the drafting and the reviewing and the looking and the regretting all at the same time, and more often than not, nothing was so unbearably irreversible that we couldn't find a way to live with it. Awful things happened and would happen, but it was okay to be overwhelmingly, unreservedly, guiltlessly happy around the awfulness. 

And it was okay for things not to be okay. At least for tonight. 

~Sam 

To: The Universe, Re: The Boy in the Lift

It was 9:30 p.m. on a Thursday night.

I'd been at work since 8:00 a.m., in a small, musty client office located about forty kilometres further from civilization than strictly necessary, surrounded by documents that seemed to have been drafted with the express intent of exasperating some poor lawyer someday. I had just returned to my own office to wrap up the work. I walked in wearily, weighed down by three heavy bags, two dark circles, and the singular certainty of another late night, and noticed, without really noticing, someone entering the lift ahead of me. I sighed deeply to myself - the lift was too far away for me to reach before he left, even if I ran, which I was in no state to attempt in any case. I took it as another bit of bad luck on a bad day, and reconciled myself to holding my bags a little longer and waiting for another one of the lifts to come down, a complex mathematical process that could take anything from mere seconds to what felt like hours. I punched the button and got ready to settle into my discomfort, because obviously, on a day like this in a week like that, the lift was going to take hours.

Except it didn't. Instead, the light on the lift the boy had gotten into lit up almost immediately, indicating its presence on my floor, and an inquisitive head popped out - was I coming in, or not? He had waited for me! I rushed in with a burst of energy I didn't realize I was still capable of, and was overwhelmed enough by this act of simple generosity to breach the fundamental rule of awkward lift encounters: maintain silence. 

"Thank you, so much!" I breathed with, perhaps, a little more effusiveness than was strictly warranted for an act that was ultimately not much more than simple courtesy. He smiled at me, somewhat bewildered by the crazy lady with the strong emotions, and gestured that it was, like seriously, no big deal. At this point, a few things happened at once: first, and most importantly, I noticed him - his plaid shirt and his awkward smile, how wonderfully unassuming and kissable he was.  Second, I realized that I had crossed the point of no return - there were no fucks left to give, he was a cute guy, and I'd already painted myself crazy, so I might as well go ahead and find out if he worked here, if I was ever going to be able to see him again.

No, he said, in a voice and accent as wonderfully attractive as the rest of his being, even as the words themselves shattered my fantasies, he'd come to visit someone, but did I work there? Yes, I replied, and gestured ruefully at my office - because my floor had arrived, and evidently Hollywood had misrepresented the amount of time available for an elevator meet-cute, so all that was left to do was wave goodbye and watch him be whisked away from me.

I never even knew his name.

They tell me, in Bollywood movies and commencement speeches and WhatsApp messages, they tell me that if you want something enough, the universe will conspire to bring it to you.

I don't know if the boy in the lift was a result of all the wanting I've been doing, the personification of everything the universe thought I needed based on my vague, overwhelming yearning; or if he's to be the object of my wanting, to be mine when I've fulfilled the quota for desire and wanted enough to warrant such intergalactic intervention.

I don't know if this should be a "thank you" or a "please" - if it's time to be grateful and count my blessings, or to be greedy and focus my desires.

I do know, however, that the most likely outcome is that I'll go to sleep, drown in some work, and forget that such an encounter ever happened, that it had magical nuances that went far beyond "a cute guy held the lift for me and now I want to marry him".

Which is why, before I forget, here I am. With a thank you. And a please?

~Sam