Last night at PPG Paints Arena, I wasn’t sure if I belonged there.

Bruce Springsteen is a privileged white man. This is his crowd, right?
Lots of older white guys in denim. Beer. Arena rock mythology. America.

As a queer lesbian raising a mixed-race, nonbinary child in this political moment, I’ve grown used to quietly assessing spaces before fully entering them.

Am I safe here?
Am I invited here?
Will there be room for me too?

My wife wasn’t entirely convinced either. She’s more Brandi Carlile-coded than Bruce Springsteen. More intimate harmonies and soul-baring tenderness than classic rock rally cry.

But then we started walking through the crowd.

“No Kings” shirts.
“ICE OUT NOW.”
Pride pins.
Purple hair.
Queer couples holding hands.
Black women and men on stage in the E Street Band.
People who looked like teachers and union organizers and artists and aging punks and tired parents and longtime activists.

And suddenly the story in my head shifted.

Oh.
There’s space for me here too.

I’ve made it a bit of a mission lately to see the greats while they’re still here. Willie Nelson. Cyndi Lauper. Paul McCartney. Elton John. Bruce Springsteen was high on that list.

And wow, did he deliver.

Nearly three hours straight. No slowing down. No phoning it in. Just relentless energy, joy, fury, storytelling, sweat, conviction, and rock and roll.

I went with my wife’s ex-husband, which honestly feels like its own kind of miracle.

There’s something profoundly healing about sitting next to the person who was once married to your wife and realizing: we did it. We built something kinder than bitterness. Something more evolved than ownership or competition.

We shared nachos.
Held onto our souvenir Diet Cokes like treasures.
Bought t-shirts we both loved.
Laughed about the painfully tight seats that somehow still felt completely worth it.

Underneath all of it, I kept feeling humbled by him. By his willingness to show up openly. By the kind of person you have to become to make something like this possible.

It felt strangely hopeful. A reminder that people can evolve. Families can evolve. Relationships can evolve.

Maybe America can too.

When the lights went down and Bruce took the stage, something in me woke up.

Not intellectually.
Physically.

The music hit like memory.

I screamed.
I sang.
I used my voice loudly in a way I honestly haven’t in years.

Maybe not since Broncos games in my twenties.

Lately I’ve been quiet.

Careful.
Measured.
Exhausted.

But standing in that arena while thousands of people shouted:

“What is war good for?”
“Absolutely nothing!”

—I remembered what it feels like to stop shrinking.

Bruce Springsteen often describes America as a “blessed, sacred argument.”

Not weakness.
Not failure.

The argument itself is the point.

A democracy where people fiercely disagree while still recognizing one another’s humanity. A country constantly wrestling with who gets freedom, who gets dignity, who belongs.

That idea hit me hard last night because what feels terrifying right now isn’t disagreement.

It’s the erosion of human decency.

The cruelty.
The corruption.
The casual violence.
The way people on the margins are expected to quietly absorb fear while the world keeps moving.

Bruce was furious. About Trump. About ICE. About what is happening to America.

And honestly?

Me too.

As a queer parent, I have never felt more on edge in my life.

We won’t travel internationally with our child right now because it does not feel safe.

That sentence alone should stop us cold.

We have a bug-out bag packed.
We have conversations about contingency plans.
We read the headlines every day wondering:

When is enough enough?

When does corruption become disqualifying?
When does violence become intolerable?
How many people have to suffer before people act?

And yet so often it feels like everyone just keeps scrolling.

But inside that arena, I didn’t feel alone.

The crowd erupted into chants of:

“ICE OUT NOW.”

Not hesitant.
Not embarrassed.
Not coded.

Loud.

Collective.

Certain.

I cannot explain the feeling of hearing someone with enormous privilege and influence use his voice clearly.

No “both sides.”
No sanitized neutrality.
No hiding behind vague statements meant to offend no one.

Just conviction.

And suddenly I could feel my own voice returning too.

Maybe that’s what art is supposed to do.

Not distract us from reality.
Wake us up inside it.

Music.
Stories.
Comics.
Essays.
Rock and roll.

Not escapism.
Resistance.

Bruce sang, “You can’t start a fire without a spark.”

And standing there among thousands of people singing at the top of their lungs, I realized maybe that spark is each other.

Maybe hope isn’t passive.

Maybe hope is chanting anyway.
Creating anyway.
Loving anyway.
Showing up anyway.

I walked into that arena wondering if there was room for me there.

I left remembering there’s room for all of us in the sacred argument.

And maybe now more than ever, we need to sing louder.

Come on up for the rising.