Lady Gaga.

Tuesday night, the 23rd, Talia, Emma, Arnaud and I piled in the car to drive to Antwerp for part 2 of my birthday: a Lady Gaga concert.

As many of you know, I absolutely LOVE Lady Gaga, her music, and what she represents. Not only that, but I feel that she's an actual artist -- there aren't many of those left in the music industry. She learned to play piano by ear at age 4, at 14 she was playing New York night clubs, and at 17 was one of 20 people in the world offered early admission to NYU's Tisch School of the Arts. That's a pretty intimidating resumé. But the way she relates to her fans is what really surprises me. She gave short speeches during her 2 hour show, and yes, I know that they're all practiced and rehearsed, but that doesn't make them any less inspiring, right? In one of her speeches, she talked about how she was picked on in high school, how she never fit in, and how people would tell her she was a worthless freak. She said she would go home, and her mom would say, "Baby, everyone is born with a superstar inside them." And that's what inspired her to release her inner superstar. She also talked about how we could be anyone or anything we wanted to be inside that stadium that night. There was nothing holding us back from letting everything out. There's nothing and no one we can't be.


But my favorite, my absolute favorite thing she said was this:

"I don't want you to leave here loving me more, I want you to leave here loving yourselves more."


Those are words to live by.