Four years ago I was in a bad way. I’d just discovered that my wife (now ex) was cheating on me again. I was also pretty sure she was using coke again too. I hated my job. I worked for a large firm in their call center. I was constantly moved form cubicle to cubicle. Customer complaints were starting to really annoy me. They changed my shifts, constantly. My boss was an ass. Everyday seemingly a new memo appeared restricting what we could and couldn’t do. The latest involved putting up cartoon displays. (I suspected this latter was in relation to a Dilbert cartoon I’d put up: This new guy didn’t have a cubicle, so they put this collar around his neck that shocked him whenever he roamed to far).
It’s 5:45 on a Tuesday morning. The night before my wife had confirmed my suspicions. I’m sitting on a BART train headed for work, barely keeping it together. I don’t want to go to work, but I can’t stay home. I’m half-heartedly thinking of getting off at the next stop, waiting for the next train, and jumping in front of it. The boys are the only reason; I’m not considering it more seriously. There’re about 10 other people on the train, one guy listening to R&B on a radio. Suddenly I here Teddy Pendergrass:
Thinking back over my years I guess I shedded some tears
Told myself time and time again ‘This time I’m gonna win’
But in every fight things ain’t right, losin’ again
Takes a fool to lose twice, start all over again
Think I’d better let it go
Looks like another love TKO
Think I’d better let it go
Looks like another love TKO
Tried to take control of love, love took control of me
‘Cause you lose all thought, sense of time and have a change of mind
Takin’ the bumps and the bruises of all the things* of a two-time loser
Try to hold on, faith is gone, it’s just another sad song*
I started crying. I hadn’t cried in years, and never in public but I couldn’t help it. Then I felt better. And it happened, it was over, I could get on with my life. I got off the train went home, packed my stuff and left. On Friday I quit the damned job too.
This song kept me from walking out on my fiance when we were having bad times (married 7 years this month and so glad I didn’t walk…)
From Marc Chesnutt’s “Almost Goodbye”
You know I tried, my best to go
I know you cried, ‘cause I hurt you so
It should have been easy to say that we were through
But to walk away from love was more than we could do
It was almost goodbye
Almost goodbye
I couldn’t bear the idea of giving up on a love that I knew was real and this song reinforced that…
I heard this one when I was trying to get up the guts to end it with my ex, who I never should have married to begin with. I cried for a while, then my new life started.
“You Don’t Even Know Who I Am” by Patty Loveless
Lyric part:
She left the car in the driveway
She left the key in the door
She left the kids at her mama’s
And the laundry piled up on the floor
She left her ring on the pillow
Right where it wouldn’t be missed
She left a note in the kitchen
Next to the grocery list
It said, you don’t even know who I am
You left me a long time ago
You don’t even know who I am
So what do you care if I go
Wwhile it hasn’t altered my life entirely, these pieces of an REM song always make me feel a little better:
*long ago I was brought into
this life a little lamb
courageous, stumbling
fearless was my middle name.
but somewhere there I
lost my way
I don’t need no persuading
I’ll trip, fall, pick myself up and
walk unafraid
if I have a bag of rocks to carry as I go
I just want to hold my head up high
I don’t care what I have to step over
I’m prepared to look you in the eye
look me in the eye*
My Dad didn’t raise me and we have had a strained relationship for most of my life. One day we were listening to Earth Wind and Fire. He told me this particular song always reminded him of me and then he sang.
*You will find peace of mind
If you look way down in your heart and soul
Don’t hesitate ‘cause the world seems cold
Stay young at heart ‘cause you’re never (never, never, …) old at heart
That’s the way of the world
Plant your flower and you grow a pearl*
“There’s not a heart that ain’t been broken, a lie that ain’t been spoken, a shattered dream that brand new love cain’t fix. I been burned, I been cheated, but this ol’ heart’s still beatin’, don’t look back, it’s just whiskey under the bridge.”
That Brooks and Dunn song got me through a bad, bad beak-up. Someday, I’d meet someone brand new.
And I did.