I'm stealing an idea from Val over on her blog. She always chooses a song to tie in with her posts.
Calls it the song of the week. I thought I'd give it a try.

I discovered this song in a very odd place. Recently I've been re watching the series Rome on DVD. At the very beginning of each season there's a preview for all of the HBO shows. This preview played the song, "Change" by Tracy Chapman. I'm not sure exactly what grabbed me, but I love both the preview and the song. Maybe it's the combination of the opening of the song and the shot of Titus Pullo at the beginning. He looks somehow simultaneously sad and like he's looking towards the future. To what comes next.

This seems like exactly what the song is saying. Through all of the bad things that happen, or that we do, we change. Things are never exactly the way they were. That change is inevitable. We need to embrace the change. And look at what really makes us change. If we don't we won't ever get anywhere.

I think this is something that I really need to learn. Lately I've been getting down on myself, and on my life because bad things have happened. Things either which I have no control over, or things to which I've contributed. I've threatened to let my regrets overwhelm me. To let my own demons shout down the better angels of my nature. When really what I need to do is realize that no matter how much I hate what happened, there's nothing I can do about it now. And to accept the change.

That's really the problem. It's my own attitude. My acceptance of failure and wallowing in grief. Which hasn't been me up until the last year. I'm not supposed to be the whiny little kid that moans about his problems. I don't get sad when something goes wrong. I don't accept my fate. I fight every single step of the way. I get mad when something bad happens!

Nothing pointed that out to me more than an incident today. I was sitting at a stop light waiting to turn left when the car in front of me, instead of turning left on the yellow, decided to back up instead. Right into me. When this happened I didn't just hang my head down and accept it. Instead I was livid. Almost shaking with rage at the stupidity of the other driver. But I didn't let that overwhelm me. I just took control of the situation, made her pull over and give me her insurance information. It was obvious to even her that I was completely full of rage. I think she was scared out of her mind, at least I think that's why she was crying. And I guess I can't really blame her. If I was a little 16 year old girl, I'd be pretty scared of the giant man with the beard that looks like he's about to kill someone. But the point is that instead of feeling sorry for myself and wallowing in sadness I just took over the situation. That I changed.

Oddly enough I saw this exact same lesson from the same source I got the song. At the end of the first season of Rome, Titus Pullo has been sentenced to death in the gladiatorial arena. He has completely stopped caring about his life, he feels so bad about where it's ended up that he refuses to fight. He just sits there as gladiators stand around him, waiting to kill him. I felt like this is exactly what I've been doing the last little while. It's completely pointless. But Pullo doesn't die there. The other gladiators awaken his anger when they belittle the only thing that Pullo still cares about, the thirteenth legion. This last shred of something he cares about lets him get up and start fighting. He remembers who he always was. He's legionary Titus Pullo, Thirteenth Gallic Legion. The biggest, baddest soldier in Caesar's army. He's mad as hell and he's not going to take it anymore.

I realize that I got off onto a bit of a tangent there. But it does tie back into the song. The song, much like the show makes me realize that if I'm going to survive this intact I need to change. To get back up and remember who I am. I've seen the worst of what I'm going to see and I've survived. Had every conceivable form of difficultly that I can think of. Lost what I wanted to hold onto above anything else. But it can't beat me if I don't let it. I need to makes some changes in the circumstances of my life. But mostly I need to change myself and my outlook and attitude.