If you’ve followed my blog for any length of time, you know that for the last year or so, I’ve included a song for each blog. I usually tack it on the end, and whatever meaning you derive from it is up to you. I used “I Will Survive” a little over a year ago, but didn’t include why this particular old disco hit holds special meaning to me.

This time, I’m going to invite you into some of the darkest moments of my young life, when I was scared, furious, disappointed, shattered. I haven’t talked about my Inner Walt in a long time, because that voice has grown steadily quieter; that’s the voice of my (long dead) father, telling me that I wasn’t good enough, not strong enough, not pretty enough, not talented enough, not smart enough.

I graduated high school when I was 17; it wasn’t early — I was just young for my class. I graduated with the full expectation of attending college in the fall, with full academic and music scholarships. I quit my full-time job, packed my things, and just a couple days before I was to leave, my father decided otherwise. Just before the fall semester was to start, he pulled me out of college. I was a minor; he was allowed to do that. His selfish reasons were entirely his own, but I was put in the unenviable position of having to beg for my job back, mostly because he had left his job, and made no effort to find another.

In a matter of a couple weeks, I went from being a kid with a dream to an adult having to help support a deadbeat father.

This song — Gloria Gaynor’s I Will Survive — became my personal battle cry. I had a 45 single, and I used to play it when he wasn’t around, belting it out. I was furious with him; he was an unstable man, and this was just another event in a series of abuses toward my mother and myself.

You’re not snuffing *my* torch, Jeff.

To make a long and painful story short, I picked myself up and kept working toward my goals. I never gave up on my dream of college. I never gave up on trying to improve my lot. Not long after that fateful autumn, a chain of events led to him deserting my mother and me, which turned out to be one of the best things to ever happen to either of us.

That chain reaction started with him walking in on me one day when I was off from work, belting out I Will Survive at the top of my lungs, along with the record player. He was furious and we had a screaming fight, but it was truly the first time I actually fought back; I usually just hid in my room until the storm blew over, but not this time. I stood up to him, and I kept standing up to him until the day he left.

Over the following few years, I managed to fight my way back to college, where I majored in music therapy and music education. It’s no coincidence that these songs I choose have meaning, friends; music is its own behavioral therapy. Although I ended up not choosing that as a career path, music has always been my pulse.

A couple summers ago, when I was in Mexico, the band at the resort played — you guessed it — I Will Survive. Like everyone else there, I sang along, and then the singer handed me the microphone. And I sang it. I belted it out. The meaning for me, now, is different; and victorious.

When I sang along with the resort band, I was sitting in a wheelchair. I was in a prison of my own making. I have fought hard to find my way out, and in just a few short days from now, I’ll take the next step toward breaking the chains that hold me back. Like those days many years ago, I’m in charge of my own fate, and I will work hard to be free of the things that bind me.

In just a few short days, I’ll have the first of two knee replacement surgeries. For a while, it’ll likely seem like I’m retracing the steps I had to take to get out of that wheelchair, walk on my own, build up stamina and control, and move forward — but I’ve done it, before.

I will survive.