Musing on Life

Woke up feeling totally crappy today. Had a long day at work. Listened to my cassette tape of Bruce Springsteen's Greatest Hits album on the drive home, sang out loud, and started to feel better.

It was amazing how listening to my favorite artist made me feel so much better. I probably haven't listened to the Boss since 2003 or so. I used to sometimes play a CD when I was online, but the CD drive is jammed now, for some reason. As far as that tape is concerned, I probably haven't listened to it since around 2000. Yeah, that long ago. The tape is kind of warped, so it just sat in my car all this time. In fact, I was surprised that it still played at all, because it hasn't even been in its protective case.

As I listened to the music, I remembered all the words to all the songs. I was immediately transported back to all those nights I sat in my bedroom at home as a teenager, listening to the same songs over and over, believing that I'd be saved by a white knight in a muscle car.

Is a dream a lie if it don't come true? I've asked myself this question many times over the years. Dreams are not lies if they don't come true. Dreams evolve. Dreams change. People change, finding new priorities. Perhpas the narrator of that song, "The River," was unhappy that he got his girlfriend pregnant and had to get married, so he spent his life with the obligations of family holding him back. But, yet he still had those summers down at the river, when life seemed endless and perfect. Maybe he's living in those memories instead of counting his blessings. Maybe to his way of thinking--living in the past--his old dreams ARE lies because they didn't come true.

I also always wondered what happened to Mary and the narrator of "Thunder Road." She gets in the car and they drive off to find their place in the sun. But, where is that place? What do they do when they get there? Because wherever you go, there you are. So he's got wheels and the ability to leave the old life behind, but what kind of life replaces it?

I guess, at least in the song, it doesn't matter. The car is hope.

They have hope, together. Anything is possible.

Anything...

...I sometimes forget that.