In college, Izzy Howell followed a musician to a music festival in Brighton—all by herself—and found self-reliance along the way.
After finishing final exams in New York City, I bought two tickets. The first was a round-trip plane ticket. The second was a ticket to a British music festival that lasted for seventy-two hours straight: bands were to play in the pubs and shops of Brighton at all hours, encapsulating the city with their energy and sound. However, while I was excited to see a new pocket of the world and meet new people, I was planning my voyage with the hopes of seeing one boy in one band in particular.
As I navigated Victoria Station, my American voice seemed to pierce the elegant intonation of British accents every time I asked a question about where to go or how to catch my train. I lumbered with my tiny suitcase as I tried to find my way, scoffing at the pay-a-pound public restroom and its twenty-minute-long queue.
I purchased tea and biscuits at a coffee shop in the train station and overheard animated Americans discussing their plans to visit the Palace or the Millennium Eye. They congregated in groups, but I stood alone. My travels had one purpose: to see if there was anything more to the spark between myself and the aforementioned up-and-coming rocker I’d met in a tavern back in NYC.
I was young enough to confuse infatuation with love, but old enough to fly across the ocean alone.
I was young enough to confuse infatuation with love, but old enough to fly across the ocean alone.
On the hour-long train from Victoria to Brighton, I spoke eagerly with native Brits who were headed to the same music festival as me. When we de-boarded the train, I took in Brighton for the first time: the buildings were low enough to reveal the whole dome of sky. Music festival-goers milled about, their bodies clogging the tiny, winding streets before me. Fruit carts peppered the sidewalks, and I spent nine pounds on some apricots and raspberries before I even caught a cab to drop off my luggage at the hotel.
When I finally made it to my room, I marveled at how totally alone I was for the first time. Even though I had lived in Manhattan away from my family for a year, this was something else entirely. I’d come by myself to a foreign place, and, although I spoke the language, I knew next to nothing about anyone or anything here.
I took a cab along Kings Road back into town and wove in and out of the pubs as everything from punk to dubstep (this was 2012, mind you) played endlessly. This wasn’t just a music festival for me—it was a festival of firsts. I fended off a hostel occupant who was far too friendly, and I shared those vulnerable concert high moments with total strangers while dancing and crying to the Alabama Shakes.
I felt very young and potent and heady—until I discovered that my teenage dream had found himself an English girlfriend.
I felt very young and potent and heady—until I discovered that my teenage dream had found himself an English girlfriend.
Crestfallen, I meandered through the city, finding comfort putting one foot in front of the other along the winding streets. I sprawled across the grass at The Royal Pavilion Gardens. I chatted with university students and explained how much more expensive school is in the States. I wandered to a bright storefront that read, “The Mock Turtle,” and went inside as soon as I saw the baked goods being served on ornate silver trays.
I was seated at an antique wood table, and served cream tea and scones on gorgeous blue and white china. The raspberry jam glistened like liquefied gemstones. The intricate dishes lining the walls were layered over a kaleidoscope of paint and paper. It was utterly prismatic. I felt like I’d been set down inside a giant jewelry box.
It was the kind of travelers’ moment I’d only ever read about in books like Eat Pray Love, like when Liz Gilbert believes she’s in a physical relationship with her meal while devouring pizza in Naples. But it wasn’t about the food—though I was deliriously enraptured by each bite of the heavy buttermilk scones slathered with even heavier clotted cream (carbohydrates > boys).
This was the moment when I thought, No matter what happens in my life, I can handle it.
The woman I became while I was alone in England would be the woman I would always strive to be.
Though the wild romantic story I was hoping to eek out of my voyage never happened, I found something far more compelling to fall in love with in Brighton. I found the woman I became as soon as I began my journey: never had I traveled alone or felt so wholly responsible for myself; never had I solely bought a plane ticket, navigated a foreign train station, bought and used a converter, or booked a hotel room on my own. For the first time, I could say without a doubt that I was capable, adventurous, and brave.
With my belly full of bread and tea, I made my way to the rocky, Celtic beach, with the same ocean that flows into the East River in the city I call my home. In that moment, I promised myself that the woman I became while I was alone in England would be the woman I would always strive to be. Every time I feel unsure, I return to her and value her instead of looking outside myself for answers.
I embraced that woman on the English shoreline, and we walked together across a bed of stones into the blue-gray water and beyond.