The Rescue

Music has always spoken to me louder than any word, poem or voice.

When nothing else can get through to me, you can bet a song will break my resistance.
There's just something uniquely captivating about music.

A few months ago my roommate and I had gotten tickets to see Tyler Ward in concert at Webster Hall this past Wednesday. Not just that, she had gotten us Meet and Greet Tickets to talk with him before the show because she has been severely in love with him for years (though I did not know this until five minutes before we met him, when she was about to faint!) She just cracks me up. Anyway, Tyler was as lovely and his voice and a truly grateful for meeting us... he was a refreshingly genuine musician who had not let fame eat away at his character. Best of all, he wore a cross necklace around his neck and an I Am Second bracelet on his arm. However amazing he was in person was slightly downplayed to exhaustion from a hectic week of school and work... I had hit a wall by Wednesday night. I was not in the best mood due to lack of sleep, I was feeling guilty for not taking care of myself as I should have for that week and I was frustrated with a mid-term paper hanging over my head to finish that night. Ugh. I wanted to enjoy the concert so badly, but I was just so tired and run down I knew I would not enjoy it to it's full potential, but I stuck it out anyway...

To my surprise I was able to enjoy the show much more than I had anticipated on my journey there, mostly because I practiced a little DBT method my therapist suggested... this is the day and the moment you have been given, so what are you going to do with what you have been given? I stopped focusing on the exhaustion and tuned into the rhythms surrounding me and the very energetic Tyler Ward jumping around on the stage.

The Rescue stole away all of my anxiety

("you really have not done well on that paper you have to finish tonight,

 you know you have not eaten as well as you should have today, 

How on earth are you going to sleep tonight?...)

and negativity

("my back hurts so badly from standing for five hours I could saw it in half, 

it's going to take so long to get back on the subway, 

there are so many people crammed into this tiny studio room 

that there isn't enough oxygen for all of us, 

was two opening bands really necessary?")

The ED-anxious-mind was silenced.

Mr. Ward came out for one more song with just his guitar. While introducing the song as one of his first songs ever written, he began to weep. Oh great here it comes...my eyes have an instinct I like to call "tear empathy"! I tuned in for the last song with everything I had and the tears began to fall. Here is the YouTube video Tyler made for The Rescue featuring videos submitted by fans about their insecurities, anxieties, setbacks, and failures and how

we overcome and have been rescued.

after that I have no words.

rescued and broken,

C