I told you guys I was chicken shit.

So of course I chose the least dangerous PEW (acronym for “purge emotional writing”) path and wrote all my negative emotions out on a word document and then when the 12 minutes was up, I deleted it. For 5 days, though not in a row. Read further to learn why.

This exercise made me feel emotionally lighter. Though in between PEW sessions I thought about all the things I was angry or sad about, the things and people that piss me off and why, so I would have an idea of what I was going to write about. Not sure if that was a good thing or not. Maybe it just showed me that I tend to keep negative emotions buried deep inside me and they need coaxing. Or maybe it was because I knew I’d be filled with anxiety if I didn’t ponder those unpleasant thoughts and feelings ahead of time. Because then I might eat up half of my 12 minutes staring at a blank page.

Another take away is that unlike other things I have vowed to start and finish, I started and finished this one. I’ve always believed myself to be a very determined person, the kind who hitches themselves to an idea and follows it through to the bitter end. However, as I’ve gotten older, my follow through is lacking. So this exercise gave me a (albeit weird) sense of accomplishment.

I think this is a practice I’m going to come back to in the future. When I’m feeling irritable and negative. But instead I will employ the fire method. Perhaps when we’re camping and Hubs has made a fire. Maybe I won’t do it five days in a row. Maybe just once. Or two times in a row. Whatever feels right at the time, I suppose.

Now back to why I didn’t do my PEW exercise 5 days in a row.

On Day 4, Hubs and I had ourselves the Best. Time. Ever. Purging the emotions that had been disturbing my peace onto a computer screen just wasn’t a priority that day.

On that Saturday, we attended a concert at Red Rocks. We saw The Avett Brothers live. After almost two years of pining for the days when we experienced the joy of live music, we got to see one of my favorite bands play at the best venue of all.

It was spectacular. The temps were perfect, the views spectacular. The crowd was in good spirits and their was such a feeling of love in the air for not only the music, but humanity as well. We chatted with the folks on either side of us, talking about which Avett Brothers songs we were most looking forward to hearing and sharing other music-related recommendations. I am especially looking forward to watching the Avett Brothers documentary the strawberry blond millennial from Los Angeles gushed on about.

Here are some pics:

It doesn’t seem right to not include a bit of The Avett Brothers music with you all in this post, especially for those of you who are not familiar with them. Here’s the tune I was looking forward to hearing live the most:

Header image courtesy of ***https://tenor.com/search/angry-typing-gifs