Bellbottom Blog

Getting Older

My friend Lisa wrote the following tweet the other day:

“Life is just a game.  One where you die at the end.  Which is like the worst game ever.”

Need I add to that?

I guess I should or this would be an awfully short post.

I think there is a time in our adult lives when we get to the realization that we are not going to be as spry as we once were.

Things were going to take longer.

Going up stairs, for example. No more two at a time. No longer ignoring the handrail.

Even something as simple as getting out of a chair requires a little more planning than before.

The physical part of aging is, like it or not, unavoidable.

I have been following the sad story of Linda Ronstadt.  She has been diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease.  Her ability to sing was taken away a couple of years ago.  She has trouble getting around. She is 67.

As Howard Kaylan points out, people in the music business don’t have retirement plans.  In the case of Linda, she didn’t write songs.  She sang and made famous songs by writers who get royalties from them everytime they are played or whenever a CD of hers is sold. If you are a singer, you wind up going out on concert tours to make your money.  Howard does oldies tours with his partner Mark Volman and an array of other sixties acts every summer.

You see a lot of people touring and this is why. Gotta pay the rent.

I am sure a lot of the acts do it because they love singing and they have reached a time in their lives where the quest for a No. ! record is just a faded memory.

Linda has written a book called “Simple Dreams”. I haven’t read it yet but I am looking forward to having a little time to do just that.

Her music floats through the timeline of my life. She sang with such power, sweetness and grace. She sang everything. When I heard about her condition that news coincided with my Dad’s passing.  As his funeral approached, I found myself on YouTube playing Linda’s music. Her songs were with me through the whole week.

This song is one of my favorites:

 

And this one:

One more:

In a recent interview she said she doesn’t have any regrets.  You just take life as it comes.

The hardest part of getting older might be looking back instead of looking forward.

What was left undone?  Did you live to your full potential as the nuns in grade school always asked?

I think doing that robs you of what is still ahead. Don’t look back.  Well…maybe glance back once in a while.

Instead, you should perhaps look forward.   See what challenges or opportunities are within reach and grab for them.  By a certain point in your life the fear of failure shouldn’t be daunting.  That’s just part of life.  You have already experienced it and you are still here.

That last paragraph was part advice to anyone reading this and part pep talk to myself.

That’s all for now, kids.

Peace