Back home, our hearts full of memories…
We are now back home, at the YFE HQ. It’s almost 3am, and I am unable to sleep, I don’t know why… The excitement of being back home, or the blues of a tour finished. The joy of seeing everyone here again, or the sadness of leaving some of the people we spent the last month with. The peace of mind I found on tour, or the stress of losing it back in a daily routine (that can’t really be called a routine). The security I found in understanding I would never find comfort in anyone, of the anxiety of being alone. That fear of the dark combined to this fear to shine. Friends and loved ones I already miss more than I should, yet meeting with everyone here back at HQ just like I left for a day. This feeling of having a life better than any fairy tale I could ever imagine, yet living it in the setting of a Greek tragedy. Life is made of ups and downs, some higher than others, some lower than others. And thinking about the tour, about everything that happened, I can’t help but think of how blessed we all are. From that modest but honest moment we spent together walking the streets of Cologne with Alex on his birthday, to that surprise cake Claudia brought us in Hannover, driving 3 hours only for this, to that day in Bielefeld when we gave Alex another “tour” birthday present, a t-shirt signed by everyone and a painting by Conrad from Trail of Dead, where we met Marcel once again after a year, and where we were given the opportunity to play 75 minutes instead of 40, to that old lady who explained in details every sculpture and paintings of a church with her struggling in Eindhoven, the show in Brussels that reunited people from Belgium, Japan, France, UK, Canada and America, and then the show in Paris, a grandiose finale to a tour that’s been just as grandiose, where the energy culminated like never before, where the members of the band got on stage during Trail of Dead’s set wearing pirates hat, and finally Alex’s surprise birthday… Words are lacking to explain just how wonderful it all has been. And I am sitting here, in front of my computer, and I feel like everything I am talking about feels out of a movie, like it can’t be real. But the smells, the textures, the pictures, everything is just too real to be just a movie. And a movie like this could never be imagined, could never be written. Because reality, for what it really is, because life, with all its ups and downs, is by far better than any movie we could dream we lived in. Because we can make it what we want to.
It’s past 3am now. Everybody’s gone to sleep since several hours. Outside, the grounds are slowly being covered in a pure and untouched white blanket, my first snow of the year… And I can’t help but smile; this reality is by far way better than any movie that will ever hit the screen…!
– Stephanie