Better Late Than Never

Life is funny because you never get everything you want all at the same time but if you keep on going and pay attention enough to notice what’s right in front of you, you’ll get everything you want in little bits and pieces: here and there, between the rocks and the hard places, in the tiny cracks, along the way, and up against every wall in your path…here, there and everywhere you will collect all your moments and memories and many of them will be momentous and wonderful – as they should be because…..this is your life!

Some things in life aren’t as good as we’d hoped they would be. I’m sure you have your own examples but mine are breast-feeding and bearded dragons. I was certain both would be amazing and I would not actively seek out either experience ever again, if I’m being real.

On the other hand just about everything else in the world has the potential to be amazing or at least a thing of value. Whether its a stepping stone or an end unto itself, LIFE (the stuff we’re busy doing while we are making other plans) has some decent things in store.

But the thing is you gotta get out and live it and that is easier said than done.

Many many times in my life, I have been overwhelmed by change, sorrow, loss, loneliness – THE UNBEARABLE LIGHTNESS OF SO MUCH NOTHING, etc. Many times I have just wanted to stay the heck in bed, and I’ve done that for sure.

After high school I had no idea what to do with myself. There was a lot of flailing before Tina Bettencourt told me to go to med school!

Medical school was fun but I was very alone for quite a bit of it and when I made friends they were of the desperate kind. They walked and talked like friends but deep down I don’t think we had what it took to go the distance.

We were placeholders for each other.

We tried.

Raising children (one of the most looked-forward-to of endeavors in my life) wasn’t a slam dunk because I was also divorced, working full time, and hormonal through a lot of it. Plus kids are way more than anyone ever tells you. For both good and bad it’s a hold-on-to-your-britches-and-pray-you-come-up-for-air-someday kind of an experience.

Note to those of you who still have kids at home: you will be thrust up for air one day and you’ll wonder how it went by so fast. You’ll be happy to be finally on your own without all the little sucker eels attached to you but same time you will be so despondent about the end of your kid decades that you’ll have to sublimate a lot until you get better. You will get better when you start to enjoy your adult children for who they now are, but gawd is it bittersweet.

Ending all of my relationships was hard, but especially the last big one that was seven or eight years ago. After Peter there really hasn’t been anyone. I catalogued it all in my DaterGurl blog – whine whine whine.

FYI I can now appreciate that all the men who didn’t want to come out and play with me were doing me a favor but at the time is was a tearfest and discouraging. I wanted a best friend and mistakenly thought it needed to be of the suitor variety. Turns out turtles and geckos and the kids next door are all magnificent best friends.

So here is my life hook and the thing I want you to rememeber: life can deliver some great happy blows in between all the difficult ones. As long as you keep trying to live it, good things will present themselves.

Like what you ask? Ok how about the Band. I am calling our band the New Ramblin’ West Coast Better Late Than Nevers. It’s a band that is really the embodiment of something I always wanted to do but didn’t think I could do.

Doing things you didn’t think you could is probably the secret to a long and gratifying life. If I had to pick one guiding principle this would be it.

The cool thing about getting older is that – in my 50’s and soon to be 60’s – I have been much more open to doing whatever it is because if not now, when and the you only have one life to live thing becomes really evident the older you get. No one misses the chances they don’t take makes more sense the longer you live.

Take The NRWC Better Late Than Nevers. When I was a little girl I really liked to sing and spent many hours doing “Life is a Cabaret” (old chum) in the driveway waiting to be discovered. I didn’t have a bad voice but it wasn’t great and I was too shy to act so my Broadway career stalled out. Kinda. Sorta,

I still made my Oscar and Grammy speeches in the car where no one but the adoring fans I imagined in my head would hear me. I still had lots to be appreciative of and gave many heartfelt thanks to all who helped me get this far. But I also had a day job.

Then an idea I’d been kicking around (the thing I could never do) – it got a kick in pants from a friend Monica and then somehow other people showed up and now third practice and here I am singing my little heart out having THE time of my life. Bam! I only had to wait fifty years for this!

So the purpose here is to say that all the things that make up a life can only happen if you are out in the world and sometimes the world makes it hard because so many overwhelming things happen but don’t give up!

Say hello to your neighbors because one of them might play the accordion or teach guitar.

Plant flowers to cheer yourself up when you’ve forgotten you pushed them into the ground. Bulbs are great for that! Talk to the kids where you live because some of them can be a lot of fun. crochet! Make friends who knit and swap patterns! Make things with clay.

The most important thing is get out in the world and do the things you want to do and be the person you want to hang out with because in the end its just you and the world.

It’s a lot, for sure, to be shackled with having to make your own life but if you engage as much as you can, you will be rewarded, adored, discovered…singing, hiking with dogs, listening to great music, growing insanely beautiful dahlias… it will sneak up on you and it will be more than enough….just not all at once.