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Tomorrow I'm getting on a plane to Las Vegas to see U2 with my friends Kim, Anne and Kat. It's a phenomenal situation, really. Kim lives near Vegas. Back in April she did a huge cross-country-and-back road trip. While she was gone, the Vegas U2 date was announced, tickets went on sale and sold out, much to her dismay. She spent a few days with me, and I helped her find a way to get tickets without bending over for a scalper. In return, she bought a ticket for me.

Have I mentioned that I have awesome friends? Because I do.

If you've been reading for any amount of time you know that I love U2. A lot. But with all the craziness of the past few months, I really haven't let myself get too excited about the Vegas show. It seemed so far off all along, and life kept intervening.

Today, when I hit the road instead of working, I put "How To Dismantle An Atomic Bomb" on, turned it up full-blast and before Bono could get to catorce, I had my Concert Reality Check. The CRC, much like Interpretive Dance Girl, is a regular at just about every show I go to. Well, the big ones, at least. It's that moment, usually a day or two before the event, when it finally hits me that, hey! I'm going to Vegas to see U2 with Kim, Anne and Kat! And suddenly my life is filled with exclaimation points, italics and shrieking with glee. In this case, catorce sounded more like "CatorcAIIIIIIIIIIIYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEHAW! I'm gonna see U2 in Vegas in two days!!!!!"

I do love that moment.

Right now, I need this moment.

I've seen U2 twice in the last four years. The first time was November, 2001. While standing on the floor, fifteen feet away from the stage, I had a moment where all the hurt, anger and fear spawned from 9/11, which I'd been forcing down for over two months, finally surfaced during "Sunday Bloody Sunday".

The last time, in Chicago six months ago, I was coming off one of the worst times in my life. I'd spent five months in therapy for anxiety and panic disorders that had dictated my life since I was a child not much older than my daughter. It was the hardest thing I've ever done. It involved putting myself nose-to-nose with every great hurt in my life, every nick in my emotional armour. I had to examine everything I hate about myself - my neediness, my ability to disconnect from anyone and anything, my body, my temper, my ability to turn away from anything remotely frightening. For months I not only wallowed in every single thing awful about myself (real and imagined), but picked those details apart. It was akin to taking one of those picks you use to get the meat out of a walnut and gouging away at my soul.

It was so bad that, for a great chunk of that time, I no longer wanted to continue living.

I had a plan. I knew how I was going to do it, end what I had grown to hate. I just didn't know when. I didn't know what, exactly, would be the final pain that would make me say, "Enough", but I was certain it was waiting around the corner, the one final despicable thing about myself that would solidify my belief that mine was not a life worth living.

I never found that one thing, because it doesn't exist. I didn't know that six months ago. I know now.

When I look back at 2005, I can see a calendar in which the entire month of April and been blackened with a Sharpie marker. The people closest to me seem to understand what I mean when I vaguely reference the month of April. It's my own little code word for, "You know, that month when I was really sad, really angry and really ready to bring things to a sudden halt, whether you like it or not because goddamn it, you're not the one living this pain so you don't get a motherfucking say in how I handle it."

When April was behind me, there was U2. If you were too lazy to read the "U2" link above, I'll summerize: I got a bunch of musical reminders that I can deal with those ugly things about myself and my life and I can make them good. And things got better.

In the months that have passed, things have fallen apart. Seeing so much human suffering; I don't know how I would have dealt with that before May. I honestly don't. I don't think I could have dealt with them. I think I would have stuffed them down and eventually imploded. It's happened before.

But things are different now. I've had several huge lessons in just how precious life is. It took the loss of thousands of people far away for me to see that. It took the loss of one person close to me for me to see that. I almost had to lose myself before I could see that. I get it. Lesson learned.

And my life is so much better for it. My relationships are better. The words "I love you", which used to be pried from my lips only with brute force, tend to slip out at will these days.

I also find myself with little patience when people who don't move when they need to. Life is short. Short and harsh. Kiss the girl. Write the book. Make the baby. Take the job. Quit the job. Jet off to Vegas with your friends for a concert because Jesus Christ, you might never get the opportunity again. It could be the best thing in your life. If things come crashing down, it might be the only thing in your life that makes it bearable to go on.

It's been a horrific year on the large scale and the small scale. Last night I just about gave myself whiplash from vigorously nodding while reading Joe. It's been a lousy year. Really lousy, and it needs to be laid to rest. Put out of its misery. Demolished. Unlike Joe, I'm not waiting until New Year's Eve to put the dog down. I'm doing it this weekend. U2 has been the balm for my soul before, and I know they will be again.