The Road to 60

So yeah, turned 59 a couple days ago and … surprise surprise, I have some thoughts …

First of all, I am not handling it particularly well. 30 was a blur. 40 was actually pretty great. 50 was really good. But the prospect of turning 60 in a year is leaving me … I don’t know what. I know so many amazing women who are in their 60s and thriving beyond, and you’d think I’d be totally stoked to join them. But not so much.

I think that I have never, for one reason or a multitude of reasons, imagined myself for any reason, good or bad, at this age – and I just don’t know how I want it to go. I have always felt like “the kid” because I was sort of an afterthought baby, a caboose following the family train at a distance. And growing up I spent a huge amount of time around adults, doing music, jamming, learning, performing, creating – and was frequently the youngest member of any group I was in by decades.

And as a young solo performer I was always the youngest performer at the festival, barring somebody’s 8-year old nephew playing a tenor banjo and caterwauling adorably for the plebs. You know how it is. Never follow a kid or an animal act. Good advice.

But generally, I have felt like a person born too late, always too young, for almost the entirety of my life.

And now I am Music Mom and Mentor to people half my age and realizing that holy shit I’m old.

I woke up on my birthday morning with my hips on fire because I slept too soundly and hadn’t moved enough in the night.

Yes, I know I am old because I’m bitching about not tossing and turning enough. What the actual fuck???

So here in the last year of my 50s, I’m looking at the road to 60, and it looks like it goes over a ravine on a very very sketchy suspension bridge made of rotting wood and brittle grass ropes.

That may be because 2023 was fraught with physical bullshit and injuries, topped off with two eye surgeries – both of which have actually been fantastic and seeing clearly and crisply is awesome, and there are these things called colors, have you heard of them? But between a sciatic explosion and lumbar disc fubar (not quite a rupture, but the next thing to it), an horrific allergic reaction to an antibiotic to treat an ear infection that wouldn’t die, the above mentioned eye surgeries, and the death of my big brother, I have been through a physical and emotional wringer, and find myself feeling every goddam second of my 59 years, and then some.

This morning I found myself fantasizing about starting a rock band with a few other … women of a similar vintage, singing loud, angry, punk and grunge flavored protest songs, peppered with loads of profanity, and calling the band The Grannies. I mean, women of my generation cut their teeth on rock’n’roll. Look at Fanny. Look at Chrissie Hynde, Patti Smith, Mavis Staples, Ricki Lee Jones, Bonnie Raitt, Saint Dolly. These women oh-so-still got it, and are out there making a ruckus because a ruckus needs making. We know what power chords are. We know how to lay down a groove that moves you. We know how to lock in and deliver. That could totally happen. Stay the fuck tuned, bitches.

I keep reminding myself that I am the creator of my own story and I get to decide how the next chapter goes.

I’m in charge of my own character development – and clearly I need some – and know how to create a good plot twist. I done paid enough dues in 2023 for a whole village. It’s time for the Protagonist to kick some ass and use their training and experience in a new way to create positive and unimagined good in the world. It’s time to rise like the Phoenix and fly. Whatever that looks like, cuz I still don’t quite know … but the journey is gonna be pretty interesting. Buckle up.