Bruised and Battered
Against all odds
I’m remembering a song that was on rotation over the radio in 1993. It was on rotation and became a theme when I went with a youth group to Philadelphia. It hummed through the speakers in a van-size bus that took us for a 12-hour road trip. I was 17. The song was Streets of Philadelphia by Bruce Springsteen. I never understood that there was a deeper meaning behind the song. It was the simple la-la-la-la’s that hooked me.
I walked the avenue, 'til my legs felt like stone
I heard the voices of friends vanished and gone
At night I could hear the blood in my veins
Just as black and whispering as the rain
On the streets of Philadelphia
Bruce Springsteen has a way of identifying with the working class and those that struggle against the odds; those who are searching for something more. And in this song, it’s potent. During the 1980s, gay men were wasting away, getting diseases like Kaposi's sarcoma and pneumocystis pneumonia. Some died in agonizing pain, sometimes slowly drowning from the fluid in their lungs. And nobody cared, not then. They were shunned by the community, feeling isolated and alone. It was tragic. Bruce tapped into that feeling.
People who have different invisible conditions should identify with this song. Conditions that we don’t want to share because we want to be looked at no differently than anyone else. Some people have a strong aversion to those who search for pity, people who play the victim to things that others let go of—unnoticed. How many of us have these things yet keep them hidden? Things as simple as uncontrollable anxiety, and depression, to conditions where, as they apply for a job, this thing is listed as something where they would be considered disabled. But I’m not. We’re going against all odds. We are not fighting it but learning, daily, how to work through it.
How can I write about guilt without making it feel like I’m seeking pity? I just want to write about my guilt. I’m not seeking anything more than that.
I remember traveling in that van-size bus, the day turning into night, and seeing the stars as I sat in the back, heading towards the streets of Philadelphia. As I headed toward another new, invisible condition. The future holds our fate, holds things we all hide. Let that fate be gentle. We are no different than anyone else until we make ourselves different.