Today's prompt asked me to think about what my own theme song would be like-little did the creators know that I already consider not one, but two, songs to be my theme music! These are songs which motivate, inspire, and just generally make me happy.
The first song is by my favorite 90s alternative group, The Cranberries. I adopted one of their first hits as my theme song immediately when I first heard it in middle school. It's called "Dreams" and even though it's about being in love, I resonate with the general feeling of seeing and feeling your life change as your dreams come true. It's also very upbeat and I love to bop around to the beat. Sometimes this song even inspires me to play air drums! lol
Lyrics:
All my life
Is changing every day
In every possible way
In all my dreams
It's never quite as it seems
Never quite as it seems
I know I've felt like this before
But now I'm feeling it even more
Because it came from you
Then I open up and see
The person falling here is me
A different way to be
I warn more
Impossible to ignore
Impossible to ignore
They'll come true
Impossible not to do
Impossible not to do
Now I tell you openly
You have my heart so don't hurt me
You're what I couldn't find
Totally amazing mind
So understanding and so kind
You're everything to me
All my life
Is changing every day
In every possible way
And oh my dreams
It's never quite as it seems
Cause you're a dream to me
Dream to me
The second song is what I call my "eating disorder recovery" theme song and it is "Get It Together" by India Arie. I love the lyrics about taking care of, respecting, and healing the body and heart. When one starts to take care of one's physical body, healing of one's mind and spirit will follow. I used the lyrics as the discussion topic one time when I led the Eating Disorders Anonymous group I sometimes attend.
Lyrics:
One shot to your heart without breaking your skin
No one has the power to hurt you like your kin
Kept it inside, didn't tell no one else
Didn't even wanna admit it to yourself
And now your chest burns and your back aches
From 15 years of holding the pain
And now you only have yourself to blame
If you continue to live this way
[Chorus:]
Get it together
You wanna heal your body?
Get it together
You have to heal your heart
Whatsoever you sow you will reap
Get it together
You can fly fly
Dark future ahead of me
That's what they said
I'd be starving if I ate all the lies they fed
Cause I've been redeemed from your anguish and pain
A miracle child I'm floating on a cloud
Cause the words that come from your mouth
You're the first to hear
Speak words of beauty and you will be there
No matter what anybody says
What matters most is what you think of yourself
[Chorus]
The choice is yours
No matter what it is
To choose life is to choose to forgive
You don't have to try
or hurt him and break his pride
Just shake that weight off
And you'll be ready to fly
One shot to your heart without breaking your skin
No one has the power to hurt you like your friends
Thought it would never change but as time moved on
That ugly duckling grew up to be a swan
And now your chest burns and your back aches
Because now the years are showing up on your face
But you'll never be happy
And you'll never be whole
Until you see the beauty in growing old
[Chorus]
[chorus]
you can fly fly fly fly...
you can live or you can die
you know that life is a choice you make
you can give or you can take
you can fly fly fly fly
you can fly fly fly fly...
I hope you enjoyed the music! I'm interested in what your theme song would be. Leave your song in the comments.
And, here are my recommended links. Womanist Musings has been on a roll lately with great disability posts and I include three of hers (two on disability and one on teaching children not to use gendered slurs). The fourth is about April being Autism Awareness month and how horrible the group, Autism Speaks, actually is.
It did not occur to me that I had a right to my own privacy, and that questioning my needs, or my decisions as it relates to my disability constitutes an act of ableism. […] As much as I am angry and I am hurt, I know that I learned a very valuable lesson. I will no longer be justifying my needs, my disability or my life choices.
Their body is their body, and having something wrong with it doesn't suddenly make it public property. If they want to explain, they will probably tell you. But for the most part, needing a mobility aid isn’t something that is worth pondering for them. They need it, they use it.
We don't have to like someone to respect their basic human rights. Just because a marginalized person is an asshole, does not mean that we have to debase them. We can counter the behaviour of an ass simply by calling them an ass. One of the amazing things about the english language is that we have so many options for expressing ourselves. There really is no justification for using a slur, or any other debasing language.
This is a common problem in disability advocacy. Instead of focusing on people with disabilities and their own lived experiences, including what they have to bring to the table and their differing opinions on policy and other issues, the focus is on their parents and other loved ones and how disability impacts them. This inherently positions disability as an externality, something that happens to someone else, to people who are not quite real, to faceless and amorphous individuals rather than actual human beings. It also positions disability, typically, as something that requires endless sacrifice, work, and misery from the people around the disabled person. And, of course, it suggests that disabled adults don’t exist.
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