Soundtrack of my life

In 1993 the band Meatloaf came out with a new album "Bat out of Hell II: Back into Hell"  I am not a huge Meatloaf fan, I like the popular songs but the genre of their music is not my favourite.  Anyway since this is the music that my husband likes we got the album and on this album one song stuck out for me "Life is a Lemon & I Want my Money Back".  In 1993 my life was not that great but wasn't as bad as it was going to get over the next few years, marriage wasn't turning out to be what I thought it was going to be.  Motherhood was harder than I thought it was going to be especially living thousands of miles from my parents.  But the song stuck with me and as my life has gone on the lyrics ring more and more true with the way I feel about my life...

Some of the lyrics that just hung on with me:

It's all or nothing, and nothings all I ever get

It's always something, there's always something going wrong, that's the only guarantee, that's what this is all about

It's a never ending attack, everything's a lie and that's a fact

We're always slipping through the cracks, then the movie's over-fade to black

What about love? It's defective! It's always breaking in half.

What about sex?  It's defective! It's never meant to last.

What about your family? They're defective! All the batteries are shot!

What about your friends?  They're defective! All the parts are out of stock!

 Life is a lemon and I want my money back!

Now I know as much as everyone else that life is what you make it...hey isn't that lyrics of a song :) but for me it doesn't seem to matter what I do life turns out difficult...if there is a fork in the road I seem to take the path that leads through the terrifying forest, the swamp land and the never ending hills to climb, and ends at another fork.  I never seem to take the path that is easily walked with the sun shining down on me and leads to the castle at the end of the road.  Some people will say that is the wrong road, for me it is just the difficult road.  My marriage has been difficult, perhaps I was too young (the first time), perhaps I married for the wrong reasons, perhaps I married the wrong person but my marriage was a constant uphill climb that I become too tired to venture on that path any longer so when a fork appeared in the road I took a road that looked easier...man was I wrong.  The path that I choose was no easier than the one I was on, maybe not so many uphill climbs but more swamps and terrifying forests along the way.  At each fork I tried a different road and each one lead me to more swamps and forests.  Now back on the road I was on before (marriage) not the same road but a parrallel road and it seems to have as many uphill climbs as the first one.  Having children hasn't been easy for me either, a lot of uphill climbs, swamps and forests along the way but not as much as in the relationship areas of my life.  It just seems that no matter the road I choose it is never the easy road, and yes I know that taking these difficult roads makes me a stronger person, but they also make me a bitter person and a person who is old and tired of life...sometimes you need a good easy road so that you can learn to appreciate life.

Life is a lemon has become my theme song.  Not so much that I think life sucks and there is no way out but more that life sucks and if I return it and start over I might get a better one the second time around.  I know that isn't possible but it is more a philisophical approach along the 'dust yourself off and try over lines'.  Life sucks (at least that is my opinion) and you can't get your money back but you can try again.  Every fork in the road has lead me to where I am and who I am and although there are days I am not happy with either I am happy for the things I have...although there are days that I wonder I do have a great husband (in his own way :) and I have four great kids, which one day will make me very proud of who they are (most days they do now) and that means that somewhere along the line I took the right fork, I just had to work harder than some.

And to quote another song that would be on my sound track "In the End" by Linkin Park...

I got so far, things aren't the way they were before

You wouldn't even recognize me anymore

Not that you knew me back then

but it all comes back to me in the end

I tried so hard and got so far

But in the end it doesn't even matter

I had to fall to lose it all

But in the end it doesn't even matter

All the end of everything the forks in the road, the chooses we made won't matter, all that will matter is the things we have done and where we end up, the rest will just be a learning experience along the way that will make us the person we were and the one that people will remember.