I feel gross when I write songs.

When I was a child, I would make up little tunes in my head. I played outside in the creek by my neighbors house or climbed the tree in our front yard. I sang all of the time (prompted or unprompted) but these little tunes were very private. I rarely let anyone hear them because, like many of my thoughts as young autistic child, I didn't think anyone would understand them. 

To be fair, my child self had a point. The songs I wrote didn't make any sense. They were about the stupid things I wanted, like finally declaring my love for my second grade boyfriend after my parents told me I was too young to be dating anyone. Or working in the concession stand at a baseball game instead of watching it (this is while my dad coached baseball; I got bored pretty easily). I thought I was going to be the next Hannah Montana or Billy Joel's hype man. It was a dream that was my own and no one else's to crush.

The TLDR: the worse I got bullied in elementary and middle school for things other than songwriting, the more certain I was that I could not write a song good enough for people to hear.

 

                                            

To this day, I am the most visibly jealous and bitter toward people that can do things that my childhood self would get made fun of for. For example, I don't run. I have always looked like I was limping when I ran, and I could never do it very fast or very long. Up until eighth grade, I never broke a 10 minute mile. A group of people I used to have resentment for: cross country runners. Many of them had bodies very different than mine, and they seemed to all have endurance to last through many races. I felt gross when I ran.

A less extreme example is my attitudes regarding video games. I get motion sickness when playing video games, and I didn't have a game console growing up, so naturally, I'm not very good at them. I was always jealous of my brother and his friends, or my guy friends that played video games. They would be breaking records in Mario Kart when I have never finished beyond last place in Super Smash Bros. I felt gross when playing video games.

What really ground my gears for a long time–you guessed it: young songwriters. Kids would call me weird for singing wherever I went. When I was in middle school, a girl tried pressuring me into singing a song in front of other kids at a sporting event just to see what this kid with undiagnosed ASD would do. The one time I tried singing a song for a friend I made in middle school, she stayed loyal to her clique of mean kids that wouldn't let me sit with them at lunch time (which I don't blame her for, middle school is hard enough). So if someone else was getting lauded for their songwriting skills, I was really upset. As the title of this post says: I still feel gross when I write songs.

These weren't just any songwriters. These would be the kids going viral on YouTube, hearing their songs on the radio, or having their songs sung by professionals–I'm looking at you Jacob Collier. Rooms full of people cheering for them and people adoring them as they sang at the next open mic. They would get the love and attention from the cool theatre kids at school, and they would be praised for being their own person and having their own thoughts. And worst of all, when people would talk shit about them...they didn't care.

Now I know better. I need to grow the hell up. I know things don't just come naturally for most people. I know that these people probably have their own insecurities. I know that for many people, especially the composers alongside me at Luther, writing music was their personal outlet for their inner dialogue. I've grown to admire the misunderstood, the innovative, the growing, and the curious composers. But even after I graduated with a music degree where I had composition assignments for my music theory classes, I am still working through the pain being unfairly judged for things I wasn't good at yet.

The first and last time I ran a 5K was when I was 17. I still get last in Mario Kart. And, other than for class, I rarely finish the songs I write.

Except for two. 

There is only one person other than me who has listened to the full version of both of these songs. When we first met, he listened to a tune I had made up on my guitar. I said "I'm probably not gonna do anything with it. Should I?" Without hesitation, he said "FINISH IT. PLEASE." And I did.

That was my junior year of college. He is now one of my best friends, and I knew he would still love me even if my songs were shit. He knew how personal it got when I would write. When I finished my second song, he was the first person I told. He sent me this text after he got my recording:

I don't think he was saying that just because he loves me. I think it means I'm getting better. I've learned over the last few years at college is that you're going to be bad at something. And sometimes, that something is important enough to you that you have to keep doing it. Even if you're bad at it. I'm not the next Lin-Manuel Miranda (although my mom thinks I might be, love you KT). Hell, Billie Eilish is a year younger than me and has an Oscar for her music. But...I think I'm ready to try feeling the growing pains again. And, because they were my best friends in college, I know now that the truly cool kids will understand what 9-year-old Abs was trying to say.

"Y'all don't want to hear me, you just want to dance"

I love genius lyricism, and as a child of the aughts, I find myself going back to music I would hear on the radio or on my mom's iPod. Moreover, I'm amazed at how often the lyrics become proverbs of my daily life.

Recently, a lyric from "Hey Ya!" by OutKast has been trending on social media: "Y'all don't want to hear me, you just want to dance." Andre 3000 (the genius that he is) uses it to back away from his heavy lyrics about people in unfruitful, unhappy relationships and jump back into the contagious joy felt in the rest of the song. It's beautiful and heartbreaking how self aware the Andre 3000 is. He knows that millions of people were not going to download this song and dance to it at weddings for the next two decades for depressing lyrics in a seemingly peppy song.

I never read into this interjection at the beginning of the second chorus, but people are artfully inserting it into their conversations about justice and inclusivity. It resonates with me on this day as I received this pamphlet from homophobic evangelical protestors on my college campus.

ID: a small pamphlet with a galaxy image with text that reads "Where are you going to spend eternity?"

These protestors had been traveling around Iowa with signs that call people to be saved from the "sins" of premarital sex, homosexuality, etc.–you know, the standard protests for most groups with intentions to spread shame instead of joy. 

I wasn't afraid. First of all, they couldn't tell a queer person even when they looked them in the eye while wearing a rainbow button on their backpack. Second, I have already come to terms with my personal identity as an LGBTQ+ Christian with goals to live out Christ's gospel. I have faith in my Creator who made me as I am, and my capacity to love and exist in different ways is one of God's gifts to me. Most importantly, I know that my sheer existence and my loving, consensual relationships with others is not something I needed to repent.

But today, the accuser found a way to get under my skin and doubt God's plan for me. Because of these protestors.

With the protestors' presence, my fight or flight response activated, somehow at the same time. No, I didn't want to hurt them, but I wanted so badly to show them how wrong they were. Usually when people ask me out of genuine curiosity, I know exactly how to support threatened communities with scripture, scholarship, well-established theology, historical context, and faith. But when people are anything but curious, I feel the fear creep inside of me. This is where Andre 3000's lyrics resonate.

I feel the pangs of ignorance and hatred as if they reached their hands to strike my cheek. I feel powerless when I stand before the Goliath of systemic homophobia that is able to justify these people's work, and I am just a kid with nothing but the words "I can do all things through Christ who gives me strength." I doubt. Like Job 3:24-26 when he cursed the day he was born, "For my sighing comes like my bread, and my groanings are poured out like water. Truly the thing that I fear comes upon me, and what I dread befalls me. I am not at ease, nor am I quiet; I have no rest; but trouble comes.”

In other words, Job said "Y'all don't want to hear me, you just want to dance."

However, like Job, this feeling didn't last forever.

As I sat in class knowing the rising tensions in the street between the music building and the Center for the Arts (by no surprise, a loud, beautiful, rainbow-filled counter-protest ensued), I received a text message from someone I knew from our college's student-led worship group. I had some classes and extra-curricular activities in common with him, but we weren't very close. I also knew he was heterosexual and cisgender. 

He asked me what was going on outside. I responded that a group of homophobic evangelicals were protesting, and the other noise was from the counter-protest going on from fellow students. He asked why the evangelicals were here, and I said that they were traveling around the midwest but I didn't know specifically what brought them here. During this conversation, I was feeling particularly vulnerable because I hadn't had an in depth conversation with him.

He then responded with the following "Well hey, I'm not exactly sure how you're feeling or what to say–if anything–but I think God loves you so much! Let me know if there's anything I can do to support you♡" 

It took everything in my power not to melt into tears in my physics lecture. It wasn't enough. Even typing these words into this post fills my heart with such love and acceptance that the words have the same impact as when I read them for the first time. Yes, I had solidarity within my community, but I so badly needed an ally in that moment. Somehow, the Holy Spirit guided this man to specifically reach out to me to make sure I was okay. Just when I doubted the connection between myself and the overwhelming love of God, someone granted me the gift of compassion.

I wanted to leave a final word of hope for my fellow members of the LGBTQ+ community who wonder if there is a God to hold them. God's love for you is abundant. God made you and is alongside you in the process of become the person you were always meant to be. God is within you and loving people around you to establish beautiful connections with one another. God is alive and well in the spaces we retreat to when we feel unsafe, and God will create safe spaces for you to just be.

Take comfort that two straight men stood in the sight of homophobes and locked lips.

Take comfort in the fact that children of church leaders grow up to be in the LGBTQ+ community.

Take comfort that our college ministries is a Reconciling in Christ congregation, a certification that signifies full inclusion of LGBTQIA+ in all aspects of their work.

Most importantly, take comfort that there are people who do want to hear you, and they don't just want to dance.