Fate's Soundtrack

On the last day, when I left my last big boy job, "Old L.A Tonight" was playing on the mp3 player. It was a difficult time, fed by just the right song. I was running on a lot of stress and heartache that fueled the necessity to leave from that place. And it was Ozzy's assurance that "it'll be alright" which helped lift the weight from those last painful weeks and gave me hope as I drove towards an uncertain future. In fact, that was probably the last time I felt secure about my decision to move on.

That was the fall of '07. And since then, the shit has repeatedly been stuffed into the air filtration system of my life. I hate to continually beat the same dead horse over and over again on this blog, lest you readers think that all I'm about is whining over the sore hand life dealt me. "Waah, I'm as pathetic a musician as I am flabby a man. I have to work for a living like the rest of the planet! Waaah!" That's really not what I'm about, and I really don't want to turn this into a whiny bitchfest. Moderately intelligent and topical bitchfest maybe, but certainly not whiny. It was just a hard time brought on by a lot of seemingly good decisions that turned to turd somewhere down the line. So, I tend to reference it a lot. It's hard not to.

But, getting back on topic, this was one of those moments in my personal history where the soundtrack just seemed to sync up perfectly. Cut to September of this year, where I finally went from being lost in the great wide open to establishing some purpose. It was a new job with new prospects and so much of that much-needed security I craved. It was The Doors this time, who fed a monumentous kick in my life with just the right song. Clearly, the fates were pleased with my performance, and rewarded me with just the musical montage I needed.

Well, the months went by, and my new job went from magnificent salvation to a bit steaming pile of shit. I grew to really hate that place. I worked among decent people, but was ruled by idiots. And to know me is to know severe and fanatical hatred towards the stupid. So eventually, I threw in my notice. I had to after all, any more time in there would have resulted in a violent episode that would've made the evening news.

As I drove into my work on my last day. No sense of the bittersweet, no mourning of what I would leave behind. Just a deep breath and the hope that I could get through this one last time. And while I was not wandering into the world without destination, that didn't mean things weren't still uncertain for me. I was about to try my hand at a job which I wasn't even sure I was mentally capable of doing. With the new employment came the prospect of looking stupid at a much higher quotient than usual. Something the mild-mannered alter ego simply couldn't handle (although he can handle it just fine when he writes this shit.) I was scared, and really needing some kind of sign that what I was doing wasn't going to sink me again.

And the fates answered with the appropriate song, yet again. As I pulled into the parking lot on that last day, the radio suddenly started to radiate with the sounds of Jeff Buckley singing "Last Goodbye." Already a favorite of mine, that song couldn't have come out of the din of radio wasteland at a better time.

So, at the end of the day, I still didn't have a direction by which to set my sails to, and the answers are definitely no clearer than they were yesterday. But I got the song I needed to hear come at me at just the right time, and that's enough for now.