By: Clara Veylan
When Anne Abel boarded a plane bound for Australia, she wasn’t chasing a vacation, an adventure, or even sunshine. She was chasing survival. “I saw Bruce Springsteen as my lifeline,” she admits. “I grabbed it.”
Her memoir, High Hopes: A Memoir, traces an extraordinary journey — one that began in the depths of recurring depression and led her, unexpectedly, into the transformative world of live music. Abel’s decision to follow Springsteen’s High Hopes Tour across five cities and eight concerts in Australia was not just a spontaneous trip. It was an act of determination to keep herself out of the abyss.
Leaving the Classroom, Facing the Unknown
A year after attending her first Springsteen concert in Philadelphia, Abel made the decision to step away from her job teaching at a community college. The years had been challenging; incidents with students, combined with her own fragile mental health, had left her feeling drained. “After having one desk too many thrown at me, I thought, ‘I am never coming back,’” she recalls. Yet quitting did not bring the relief she had hoped for. With her children grown and her husband frequently traveling, the prospect of unstructured days felt overwhelming. “I was afraid I’d fall back into depression,” she says.
She knew she couldn’t return to inpatient treatment or undergo more electroconvulsive shock therapy, which had left her with memory loss and chronic jaw pain. She needed a new plan. Then she remembered: Springsteen would soon be touring in Australia. The idea became clearer as she merged onto the expressway heading home. She would go. Alone. For 26 days.
Terrified, but Determined
By her own admission, Abel dislikes traveling and prefers not to be alone. Australia, with its long flights and distant cities, seemed an unlikely destination. Yet she felt she had few other options. “Even though I was terrified, I never seriously considered not going,” she says. “Throughout my life, I’ve taken on things that were daunting or uncomfortable because I believed it might help me.”
This tendency to push herself was ingrained early on. Abel recalls being encouraged to study chemical engineering at Tufts, despite struggling with math and science, because her parents expected it. “I couldn’t add three numbers together,” she says, “but I wanted to please them.” She persevered through challenging coursework, graduated, and secured a job — not because she loved it, but because she was determined to prove she had tried. That same resolve would later fuel her decision to travel across the world for music.
Finding Structure in Song
The trip was not without difficulties. Abel describes counting down the days until she could return home, much like she counts down the minutes of her daily workouts. Loneliness grew heavier with each passing city. Yet, something unexpected happened: music began to shift her perspective.
The concerts became more than mere entertainment. They provided structure, focus, and a sense of ritual. Each show offered a new experience — two nights in the same venue could feel like entirely different worlds. “Each one was amazing and soulful,” she remembers. She marveled not only at the performances but also at the subtle, unspoken communication among the band. By the final concert, she could anticipate their cues.
She also found herself in close proximity to Springsteen’s circle, often staying in the same hotels as the E Street Band. Ever observant, she relished the chance to be a “fly on an A-list wall,” overhearing snippets of conversations that revealed the dedication and detail behind each performance.
The Courage Others Saw
What surprised Abel most was how strangers responded to her journey. Back home, people often dismissed her plan, viewing it as an indulgence. But in Australia, people reacted with admiration. “Many called me courageous. Many said they wished their mothers were like me,” she recalls. Their words prompted her to see herself through a different lens, to step outside her own narrative of survival and appreciate the resilience others admired.
Coming Home Changed
For all the challenges, Abel describes the concerts as pure joy — “100% fun,” she insists. And that joy mattered. In the midst of Springsteen’s reflections on aging, depression, and resilience, she found her own struggles mirrored. One night, when the performance began subdued, Springsteen admitted, “If you had told me an hour ago that I would be here, I never would have believed it.” By the end of the evening, he and the audience alike were reinvigorated. An older man beside Abel turned to her and said, “This was an experience of a lifetime.” She understood exactly what he meant.
Returning home, she carried more than just stories of music. She carried proof that she could create structure outside of the classroom, that she could find moments of connection even in solitude, and that joy was not beyond her reach. “As much as I wanted to go home, I was ambivalent,” she confesses. “I felt a new sense inside me. I had stories to tell.”
High Hopes for the Future
In High Hopes: A Memoir, Abel shares those stories with honesty and vulnerability. Her journey is not presented as a fairy tale of instant healing, but as a testament to perseverance. She acknowledges the shadows of depression, the fear of relapse, and the difficulty of embracing joy later in life. Yet her narrative underscores a profound truth: sometimes survival requires taking risks that terrify us, and sometimes joy is discovered in the most unexpected places — like the roar of a concert crowd halfway across the world.
Abel once told her children she wanted her tombstone to read, She tried and she tried and she tried. But through her memoir, she offers something even more enduring than effort: hope. High hopes, in fact — not only for herself, but for anyone searching for a lifeline.
Discover High Hopes: A Memoir by Anne Abel — a powerful and moving story of resilience, self-discovery, and hope.
Available now on Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and other major retailers.
