When Eminem makes you stop and Think

It is intriguing how you can hear a song just one time and it just gets you. Like right in the gut.
That's how it was last night with the Eminem and Nate Ruess song Headlights.
I think it was because my teenage years were filled with the much too graphic yet still genius music of Eminem. I never owned a CD, but if it came on the radio then I knew it.

And even back then, I remember thinking, his music, and his talent, they went much deeper than some flash in the pan. Because he was rapping from the heart and it was a place filled with straight up anger, and dysfunctional living. And it was 100% opposite from my life in every way.

So last night to hear Headlights and think back to the intense words he spoke in my teenage years about his mama. To hear him in Headlights, well it kinda took my breath away. Because in this season where I feel like I am having to grow up. I see that I'm not the only one. EVERYONE changes and grows up. EVERYONE has to mature. You cannot escape that, though you can hold it off for a time. No matter your up bringing or wealth, your faith, your fears, your status, or your job. My generation, and the ones who have gone before, we are grown-ups now. And the babies of my friends will be grown-ups one day too. Time was never meant to be frozen.

In gist Headlights talks more about his troubled and very sad childhood. But while the emotion is there, and I mean he shares it openly, the song made me want to cry actually. Anyway, that deep seeded, bitter, uncontrollable anger is not present. I don't even know where he gets the strength to share as he does. I figure he raps sorta, kinda like I blog, to get the feelings and thoughts out of his mind.

Anyway, despite some language, I got a lot out of Headlights. It was a vivid reflection of the lives that many of my students face. Daddy gone, Mama struggling with her own issues, and kids left to fend for themselves, and not doing a very good job. Because this world is not made for children to have to be grown-ups before their time. Those are the stories you don't want to hear because they tear you up and in some ways make you feel absolutely helpless.

There comes a time in life when you learn that there is nothing in that place of holding on to resentment. And even though you might have gone through some truly unspeakable hardships and pain. The letting go, the moving on, the extending forgiveness, those are the things that will save your life. Looking back and basking in bitterness is not only lonely, but it will steal your life right from under your nose.

Whew! Who knew one song would get me so stirred up. But such is life. I think I will continue to think about this topic, about how much we can grow up when we accept it. And about how much change is actually possible when you open yourself up to goodness and forgiveness. I have no idea, but maybe Marshall has grown in faith, in some sort of way. Who knows right? However it has happened he is transforming. And that is something we don't always notice, though it is happening to us all.