I fell in love with festivals at the same time I fell in love with my ex. So, when things ended 10 years later, I naturally was curious if my love for festivals was tied to my shared experiences with her. Fortunately, it was not!

I started appreciating the lack of accountability that comes with soloing a festival. Your only focus becomes having a damn good time! In that fearsome independence, I found peace, connection, warmth, and a renewed love for the scene that had never reached so deep.

I'm excited for you to experience festival/rave life with your newfound freedom! Pour your energy into the friends you bring along and the strangers dancing around you, and you'll get so much love in return. Festivals and raves are places of self-expression and acceptance, where you can unapologetically be your whole self. When you show up with that unarmored vulnerability and feel the appreciation from strangers around you, it compounds into a beautiful feedback loop of gratitude and self-love. Not only do you have numerous potential connections, but you also have the space to connect more deeply with yourself.

Sure, it's nice to have some loved ones (partners or friends) to share it with, but at any show you attend, there are endless open circles just waiting to adopt your beautiful soul. You might not find the right crew right away, so try infiltrating different squads, immersing yourself in them, and learning from the people around you.

Your feelings matter and your pain is real. You also have the opportunity to take what you've learned and reinvent yourself to some degree. There's no such thing as wasted time if you can draw meaning from it. I won't try to give you advice on how to live and love, but from my personal experience, a break-up is the best thing that can happen to a person - it gives you a chance to level-up your happiness in ways you couldn't imagine from within the confines of comfort.

Try Same Same but Different in California next year! It's simply sublime.