The past is the past and it is gone, so I must get over it, we all must say. Move on and forget the woe-is-me what-have-I-done lately blues. Blues are a relative thing. No, I don’t mean I am mourning my Mom, Dad, Bro or Sis, or any other character along my bloodline. No, I mean I’m getting old; being a senior citizen; my woman has left; my dog died; the car is stuck in the mud; and the utility has turned off my electricity, blues. I’m talking about dark, deep blues with tinges or halos of purples and crimson flashing in the back of my brain. The strings of the electric guitar between my ears are bending and screaming and crying real tears. The sax in my gut is spewing moans and groans of pity me, pity poor me, the low-down victim of all that is bad and worse. You know how it goes …?

I’ve disappeared … invisible … I’m aging … I’m old. My friends can’t see me as I walk by and say hello. My enemies burn my image with their eyes. People I don’t know glare at me like I was a resurrection of the devil. I am no one, nobody, non-existent, a person non-grata and the bottom of all shoes.

“I usta be somebody!” I know you’ve said that too.

Darn Right I got the blues. Slam-Blam-Bam Blues with accompanying steam of cooked egos and smoke from the trash I leave behind me. I got torn-jeans, black-eyed, mussed hair and hole in the boot, last-gasp blues. I’m down, I’m out, and I’m the trash after my last how’s-it-going-old-man birthday party. Heaven is no help for these blues. I’m so down; it’s too far for anyone in that spiritual sky to take notice of my cry.

And I’m wailing. I’m jailing. I’m hailing a cab to take me to nearest elevator down to my soul for introspection. My soul is a blue tar pit. It’s as blue as the boysenberry smudges on my brain.

Down here, inside myself, I disappeared to find my life. I walked behind the exit door and entered a world of the expectations. I saw the lights of a powerful blue neon sign blinking the message, ‘Poor You, You Poor Man, Poor-Poor Blue Old Man,’ following me to the next street into the future. Blues are everywhere, and you can’t escape it. You can’t shake the tail it has attached to your hind end, a tail called TIME. You must live with it and make it part of your every-day life. Blues are part and parcel of everybody, just like arms, legs, eyes, ears, and all the remaining hairs on your head.

That’s it; get over it!

Seniors are always crying about the past they can’t relive. It’s gone; times past; the life of a younger person, not you, now, in this stage of your life, that is, senior in retirement … for Gosh Sakes … I’m a Boomer!

The Future is my next step, next thought, next dream. I have no choice in the matter. Have a dream; make a plan; list things I want to do; list things I haven’t done but always wanted to do; consult a fortune teller; whatever it takes to get the process started. What process you may ask yourself? Living from now on is the process. You can go to the ocean and take that long, last swim, or swim toward that palm tree in the Tropics. This is the better choice. The blues, after all, is a natural phenomenon in the process of aging.

“Life is ours to be spent, not to be saved,” said D.H. Lawrence. You must spend your remaining years as if they were gold coins … only on the best items with the most value. You know what they are. You know what you want to do, but have always hesitated.

There are so many ways to improve and several things you can accomplish to make this the time of your life, actually, the time of your life, and not the blues of your life. So many plans you haven’t thought of, but others have. It is an economic or intellectual crisis for some, and the same opportunity for others. There is a potpourri of protection you can do and build around yourself to make this happen. Two things are essential; you must have friends and finances forever, or at a minimum, as long as necessary: Having no friends and no money is really depressing.

We all know there are other things that are more important as time flies by. Like … the alleviation of an enduring pain; sex after such a long time; a wrinkle cream that really works; solid 8-hours of sleep; a healthy bowel movement; and maybe even truth in advertising. But we can’t have it all.

Agreed, these are small things, but they add up to happiness from now on. After all, as Ben Franklin said, “The Constitution only guarantees the American people the right to pursue happiness. You have to catch it yourself.” I guess he’s saying you, and I, can’t sit around and wait for the time of your life to land on our shoulder … we have to go for it and shake those old-timer blues and dark shadows of doubt. Now! Things change and we have to go for it, and leave the past there, in the past.