Everyone's story has a "bottom"

This morning as I was driving a song came on the radio.  Just with the opening chords of the piano, I recognized the singer, the title, the main line from the chorus, and a time period in my own life.  All of that just as the song began.  It seemed like I was there again frozen in a time period that had already come and gone in my life.

Mainly, it was the time period in my life that my mind recalled as I was driving.  The song was not particularly memorable.  In fact, if I ever think of songs from that era, this one never comes to mind.  But there I was driving down the road in a trance, stuck in 1986.  1986 was the lowest point in my life - still is.  Most everything I had expected, dreamed of, and worked for was totally shattered.  I was working part of 1986 in a job I had never done before and wasn't related to anything I liked or had trained for.  I wasn't living at the time with my wife and son.  The job after I quit the one just mentioned was in a field I had trained for, but was below even the entry level, a hack job.  I had gone not just 3 steps backward, but more like 20 steps backward.

Popular in 1986 was the song, That's Just the Way It Is, by Bruce Hornsby.  The opening line speaks of people lined up in a welfare line with someone driving by to mock those in the line by shouting to them, "Get a job!"  The chorus reverberated in my reasoning.  I identified.

That's just the way it is,
Some things'll never change,
That's just the way it is...

Yep, it was a very low time in my life.  I remember the distinct thought, if I ever get out of this situation, then I will appreciate everything from that point on.

At the same time, Bruce Hornsby made another song popular, Mandolin Rain. That song was about a sour relationship.  The lines of the chorus:

Listen to the banjo wind,
Sad song drifting low,
Listen to the tears as they roll,
Down my face as she turns to go,

actually brought tears to my eyes whenever I heard the song since I was living almost 6 hours from my wife and two-year-old son.  It made my nights very, very long because I was alone.

So, as I was driving, scenes of those two jobs floated in front of my eyes.  Mistakes I had made, moves I wanted to make (that also would have spiraled me further downward), particular people I had come into contact with, and just the sensation of perfect misery flooded my thinking.  I missed the laughter of my little boy and his journey of discovering life without me.

It's not 1986 now.  We're in the third decade removed from that time.  It's amazing how powerful a song can be to be able to put you in a certain time and circumstance far removed from the present.  But, it happened today.

Fortunately, the chorus of The Way It Is, ends with a more optimistic line and is repeated after the first two verses (even though the song ends on the pessimistic note of "That's just the way it is."  But there is encouragement in the song.  The ending line of the chorus reads, "Ah-h-h but don't you believe them."  That's what I had to believe, too, in my miserable condition long ago.  And I didn't.  Today the story is a far cry different from the days of 1986.  Occasionally, I

Listen to the Mandolin rain,
Listen to the music on the lake,
Listen to my heart beat...

But the words that come next are not "tears rolling down my face," but satisfaction with particular accomplishments in life that 20+ years later have given me something to at least smile about and rest in.  I have learned that the things that never change are not for me.  Don't believe them.  Listen to the Mandolin Rain, all right, but, see yourself engaging in

A cool evening dance,
Listen to the bluegrass band,
It takes the chill from the air,
As they play the last song...

Let the music on the lake soothe your soul.