Thank you

She took a deep breath and peeked around the side curtain of the stage. The bar was full of people talking animatedly, drinking cheap beer and wine from plastic cups. Among the smiling people in flannel shirts and jeans, she could make out some familiar faces of long-lost friends, teachers and other random folks from her time growing up in this place.

She felt strange being back in her hometown, the place where she had made her first attempts at music and the place where her dreams had nearly been crushed.

She clutched her guitar to her chest, holding it tight. The smooth wood and worn-out strings reminded her of who she was, and what she had accomplished. It was her best friend, the one thing she had taken from this town, which had never let her down. Unlike most of the people mingling in the room beyond the stage.

“It’s time,” her tour manager Tess said, smiling at her encouragingly. Behind her manager’s short stature, the camera of the TV crew following her on tour was pointed directly into her face. She forced a smile and gave them the thumbs up to indicate she was ready for the show to start, although she felt more nervous than excited. She loved going on stage and singing for her fans, but tonight felt different.

“You got this,” Tess murmured, reassuringly squeezing her hand, while the crowd was cheering and waiting for their prodigy daughter to take the stage.

Of all the people surrounding them, Tess was probably the only one who understood the conflicting feelings cursing through her at the moment.

With another deep breath, she fortified herself and stepped onto the stage, her boots pounding on the sticky wooden floor, the smell of stale beer and cigarettes and broken dreams engulfing her. She gripped the guitar even tighter, her long brown curls falling over her shoulder. The stage light was blinding and for a moment she could only see shadowy figures in front of her, the familiar sound of applause washing over her. Tonight, though, the praise felt wrong.

None of these people in this town had ever believed in her and her music, but here they were cheering her on and pretending to be her biggest fans. Resentment bubbled up in her like a raging tide.

Maybe coming back hadn’t been such a good idea after all. But she was a professional. She was successful, despite all their efforts to squish her down.

I can do this!

“Good evening,” she said into the microphone, smiling brightly at the crowd. “As many of you know, I grew up in this town. So, it’s special to come back here and sing for you all.”

The crowd cheered and hollered.

“It’s special,” she continued. “Because leaving this town had been the best decision I have ever made.”

The cheering quieted down, dissolving into surprised murmurs.

She knew she should stop talking, but from the corner of her eye, she saw Tess standing beside the stage, encouraging her to go on.

Now that she was here everything came back to her. Her teachers telling her that she had no future in music, that she wasn’t good enough to make it. That she should stick to something useful like economics and math.

Her fellow students laughing at her when she told them she wanted to become a famous singer. The booing at her first open mic night at the local pub and the long shifts at the same pub later, serving the people who had disregarded and shamed her just moments before.

Her own family not believing in her and saying she was a dreamer in this condescending tone that still made her furious.

“I recognise a few faces here tonight,” she said. “And to all those people I just want to say thank you.”

Someone cheered from the back by the bar and a wave of laughter rippled through the crowd. She ignored them.

“Thank you for showing me that there was nothing here for me to stay for. Thank you for making me stronger by not believing in me. Without your rejection, I would have never left this town and made my dream come true. I would still be stuck here, miserable and asking myself what went wrong with my life. But thanks to you and your close-mindedness I found the courage to leave and go out there into the world. Being back here on this stage is thanks to all of you who told me I would never make it. Guess what, I did. So, this song is for you.”

An uncomfortable silence had enveloped the room and people were looking at each other unsure of what to make of her announcement.

She could feel the camera zooming in on her from the side and knew the producers would not be happy with her little speech.

The show in her hometown was supposed to be a highlight for the documentary they were making: a real-live fairy-tale of a small-town girl becoming a music superstar.

It was supposed to show her fans the lovely town she had grown up in, the place that had inspired her and where her music had been nurtured.

What a load of crap, she had thought at the first pitch meeting with the TV producers. This town hadn’t given her anything more than bitterness and enough material for some songs.

At the same time, the town was still part of her and would always be. She had taken her anger and frustration with her to her new life in the big city, but instead of letting these feelings crush and drown her, she had used them to create something great, something that she was proud of, and which seemed to resonate with a lot of people out there. She was not going to stay silent and be the perfect girl everyone expected. They had tried to do that here, in this town for most of her teenage years and she was not about to fall back into the same pattern of being shaped into someone she wasn’t. Not by these people here, not by her record label and not by the producers of the documentary.

With the first chords she played, all her doubts and memories faded away and she was one with the music once more. What else did she need? The stage was her happy place and she would not allow anyone to ever take that away from her again.

“This song is called Thank you.”