My theme song is “I Will Survive” by Gloria Gaynor. I first heard this song over thirty years ago when the song first came out and I have loved it ever since. When I think about a theme song, a song that always, always, always lifts my spirits, this one comes to mind. There are other songs I love, of course, because the melody is wonderful or the lyrics are memorable; there are other songs that make me feel want to dance. But this is my signature song.
Why? The song describes fear and self-doubt and the long process through which a person comes to see her own strength and feel her own emotional resilience. The story of the song is getting over a break-up, an event that is certain to make anyone doubt whether she can move on and trust again. A break up of a relationship, the end of love, is certainly one of the hardest experiences anyone can have. In my own life, I have felt that terrible pain at the loss of someone’s love and remember the feeling that you can’t even breathe because you hurt so much. As if your life is over. As if you’ll never stop crying. But your life isn’t over, of course. You will stop crying. You will stop hurting. You will survive.
But I think the break up is a metaphor for all of life’s hardship and adversity. “AT FIRST I WAS AFRAID. I WAS PETRIFIED. THINKING I COULD NEVER …” fill in the blank: get out of bed in the morning, live, succeed, love myself again, love others again, try to do something difficult. The person in the song finds the courage inside herself. She begins to feel her strength. She becomes a new person. And she is not subject to the same feelings or behaviors that she was subject to before. She has endured. She has survived. She can’t go back to those old feelings.
I love this song because it is a reminder that I will, indeed, survive. Even when things seem to be at their worst. AND I WILL HOLD MY HEAD UP HIGH. Also because it is a reminder that the only certain change is the change we make in ourselves.