Tomorrow, aside from my mother’s wedding, which consisted of an intimate gathering of only a few family members, will be the first time I will sing and play guitar by myself in front of a group of people in over nine years. I used to be good at this sort of thing, but then, after everything that happened, I had said that I’d never perform again. Those days are over, I’d told myself.
You would have never guessed that I took years of voice training in my youth, or that I play guitar, because I hadn't picked it up in years. It had remained tucked safely under my bed, and when times were tough, I’d be lying if I said that I hadn’t considered selling it for a quick buck. I didn’t listen to much music either. In fact, if it weren’t for Jeremy, I’m not sure how often music would have been played in our home at all. My CDs had long since been retired or tossed in the trash, and my favorite thing to listen to had become talk radio on NPR.
Tomorrow.
Just thinking about it made me both anxious and scared out of my mind. I couldn’t do chord changes with shaky, sweaty fingers. I couldn’t hit those high notes with my nerves sucking my very breath from my lungs. No, I can’t do this, I said to myself, fully knowing that I must.
As I set about selecting music, I found quickly that I lack either imagination, or that I connected so strongly with a certain musician, that it seems appropriate that I'd cover only her music. Jennifer Knapp is a Dove Award-winning, Grammy-nominated artist who, beginning in 2004, took a 6-year hiatus from music. In 2010, upon announcing her return to music, her fans had all but few abandoned her when she announced that her return would not be to Christian music and that she had been in a same-sex relationship for eight years. As a result of her admission, she was written off by the majority of the Christian community as someone not worth supporting—all because she fell in love with the wrong person.
All of a sudden, all the things that I had adored about Jennifer Knapp before 2010 became much deeper and more profound. She was willing to do on a much grander scale something that I wasn’t yet willing to put myself out there for. I couldn't reconcile the person I’d become to someone who played Christian music. Hell, I currently can’t even seem to reconcile whether or not I’m really a Christian. So tomorrow, I will make my way in front of a crowd, however small, and sing Jennifer’s love song written to her partner—a love song that is virtually my love song to Jeremy—because some things will find ways to be reconciled, however unorthodox they may be. There is simply no other way. Sometimes, you can never be sorry.
[Song starts at 0:58 seconds]
