I'm not really into country music, but there are some songs that really resonate, and I'm not talking just about Lil Nas X's "Old Country Road" or John Denver's "Take Me Home, Country Roads." I was this years old (37 in a few hours!) when I learned that one of the most favorite songs that came on the radio in my twenties is called "If I Die Young" by an obscure "not-Jeopardy-worthy" band named The Band Perry. An excellent song whose lyrics make you wonder (I'm also not one who focuses on lyrics of songs) what it'd be like to die young and never experience love, and it strikes the audience that there's someone out there that this applies to, dying young and not getting to live to 37, as I live to today.
37 years old is not a special age, no one has a party for 37, it's not a round number, not an even number, but it's significant enough for me to reflect that I've probably already lived half of my productive years (I think by 75 I won't be very productive anymore), yet I don't feel like I know half of the things I ever want to know, or have experienced half of the things I want to. The more I delve into different worlds, the more I realize how many different worlds there are out there, not enough for many lifetimes to experience all of them that I want to. The other day I learned what "elote" is, a Mexican corn dish and I made one! Yay! How have I not experienced all of these foods in my life before? I'm reading a thick tome of a book called "1000 books to read before you die" (A life-changing list!) right now and even in a category where I feel like I know some things and an author or two, there are so many that I just haven't read. I even want to read all the young adult literature, in fact they can be the best stories (C.S. lewis had the view that a children's story which is enjoyed only by children is a bad children's story).
Which brings me to the dilemma of having kids, of which I still have none (the joke about not having any kids "that I know of" has gotten lame even for me); it's the ultimate sacrifice for adults because essentially it's an admission that your life isn't the most important anymore, now you're living for your kids, and the kids' needs must be prioritzed over your own, including trying to pursue dreams, enter different worlds, doing everything you wanted to do with the second half of your life (in my case). I'd have to cross half of all those things off my list of to-do's. But if I don't have a child, I'd have to cross off the BIGGEST thing left in the 2nd half of life to do: have kids and enjoy life with them. That would have been my biggest regret if I died young: Not to enjoy the love of having kids.
At least, unlike the narrator of "If I Die Young," if life ends at 37, I have loved others (just not kids) and lived. I'll always have that. And also some obscure trivia facts like Lake Placid, NY hosted 2 Winter Olympics, both in 1980 (the most famous one, Miracle on Ice) and 1932; Antoine Saint Exupery sadly died in a plane crash (ironically since Little Prince was a pilot), and "fascinator" is the name of a headpiece that was shown in Prince William's Wedding worn by Kate Middleton (now the Duchess of Cambridge). Welcome to my....oh gosh, late thirties???
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