“You go on, doll.” Gladys shooed me away with her hands. “We’ll have plenty of time to chat later. We’re staying in town for a couple of days. You break a leg.”
McKenzie wrapped her arms around me, and I leaned down to kiss her softly.
“Thank you,” I whispered in her ear.
She nodded and touched the sides of my face. “You’re welcome.”
I climbed on stage to hoots and hollers from my loved ones and did a quick sound check before Lena ushered me to the back to await showtime.
Having McKenzie and all my friends—my family—there in my corner helped to ease my nerves. At the end of the day, seeing the pride on their faces because of something I’d accomplished made everything worth it.
My phone pinged from my jacket pocket, and I pulled it out to find a text from McKenzie.
Full house!!!
Next came a photo she’d taken of the bustling room filled to the brim with fans.
My heart leapt into my throat as I wrote out my response.
This wouldn’t have been possible without you.
What part?she asked almost immediately.
“All right,” Lena said, poking her head inside the cracked door. “You ready?”
“Just one second,” I answered, smiling as I typed out my reply.
Every part.
“This next oneis the first song I wrote on my own,” I said into the mic, my guitar resting on my knee. My gaze returned to McKenzie who was seated directly in my line of sight. As the evening progressed, I continued to seek out her face, blurring out every other person in the room. Performing at The Bluebird wasn’t like anything I’d done before. There were no other band members to bounce off, no one else to relieve any of the pressure. It was just me, my guitar, my songs, and my stories.
I cleared my throat. “I’d been given an assignment from my therapist to begin putting some of my feelings down on paper, and like most assignments I’d been given before, I had no intention of actually doing it.”
The crowd laughed softly as though we were all just friends, gathered around a campfire, having a private conversation. It wasn’t like the Midnight in Dallas shows I was used to. There was no screaming or shouting to cover up a sour note. The audience was so quiet, you could hear when someone so much as placed their pint glass on the table.
I looked at McKenzie. “But then, someone much smarter than I am told me I was looking at it all wrong. That I needed to think about it as though I was crafting a song. And that’s when it clicked for me. Once the words started coming, they didn’t stop. They still haven’t.”
“I always enjoyed performing when I was with Midnight in Dallas, and I was part of the writing process, but until I worked on this record, I didn’t feel like there were any songs that belonged to me. I never contributed much in the way of my own lived experiences when we wrote as a band. And that’s probably because, up until this past fall, I kept everyone in my life at arm's length.” I gave a subtle nod toward where Jax, Dallas, and Derek were seated. “I didn’t share much about what I dealt with because I was…ashamed. I didn’t tell people what I went through because I didn’t want them to know.”
“Writing the songs for this album felt like…a reclamation. Of music and the life I led that brought me here. It’s become the way I process my emotions. Each song on this album reflects my healing journey, but this next one is special to me because it was the one that made me realize maybe I had something to say,” I continued. “I think a lot of people do, but they’re afraid. Of being perceived, judged, or being told there’s something wrong with them because they’re not like everyone else. Then eventually, you become prisoner to this echo chamber of thoughts that say you’re broken—that you’re not good enough.”
“You stuff yourself into the boxes other people make for you, tripping over yourself to meet their expectations, just trying to make something fit,” I said, my focus returning to McKenzie. “But all you really want is someone who sees you. This one’s called ‘Death Row.’” I closed my eyes and played the haunting opening notes before beginning to sing.
“Locked inside the confines of my own mind
A cage built by my own hands is still a prison
How long must I cry alone in the dark
Until shame becomes my true religion
Knees down at the altar
Jump then falter
I wish I were someone else
The prison guards became my priests
