I’ve not posted one of these in a while, but this song leapt out of nowhere to tackle me.

Lady A has provided me with some of my favorite easy listening and romantic country ballads. I have enjoyed being their fan for nearly a decade, I think.

But what has pulled me even closer to them has been the moody, searching nature of a number of their radio releases in recent years. Their songwriting has been, to some extent, their acceptance of arriving into middle life with all of its longer and broader existential concerns. And with this crossing of borders, they are reflectful, and they have also been willing to ask some soul questions about the substance of life.

I came across this song randomly recently, as, with COVID shutting everything down, I have not been dancing in quite a long while, and my exposure to new country music has been minimal. If I am in my truck and not listening to a CD (old school, right?) or a sports station, country music is usually my next choice. And I have not been in my truck listening to music much in the last year and a half.

So when YouTube offered this song to me last week, I gave it one listen, I was hooked.

My life is at a heavy assessment point, being here at age 53, and still bewildered by much of life. There is a pain that comes with opportunities lost and time wasted, and Lady A talks quite a bit to this, about how fears rob us of so much, and how shames numbs us out when we are its slave.

“I gave so much time to nothing.
I focused on who I was, not who I’m becoming.
My fears, they took up space;
My eyes couldn’t look away;
I didn’t even realize I worshiped I hate.”

It goes to say that we worship what occupies our hearts and minds the most, and I live too much in my past, reliving the stings of old slights and the blows of lost friends, lost opportunities, and lost time.

And fear certainly presses me to stay there, looking back- because it is easier to do that than to forgive- to really forgive and let go of what you’ve done, and what has gone on before- and get up again and start over, pick a new direction, risk more, and try again.

“I am guilty of staying and just checking out.
Yeah, I kept my head down and really missed out on what’s in front of me.”

Well, the sun is still up in your life. If you gotta change things in your world, you gotta accept the jolt, but get up and throw yourself forward. You can’t fix anything that happened back there. No one else will live your life for you.

You gotta let go of nothing.