I normally try to write intentionally, thoughtfully, with integrity.  This is not one of those times.

I am perplexed. I find myself in such a strange time of sweet, and painful, and stretching, and a confusion that makes me feel far younger and more foolish than I should be while wearing a mantle of weary and hard-earned wisdom. I know I am not alone in this. For some, it stems from current events and the resulting reactions – from people we only observe from afar, and from people in our every day world. For some, it is finally experiencing, full stop, the long-lamented racing away of time. For many, it might be the constantly shifting world we live in, so much faster and more difficult to adapt to than times in the past (and the inner battle to decide if that’s middle age talking or objective reality). I just know that the layers of life are sometimes light, and sometimes almost unbearably heavy.

In one of these moments today, after too long on the road, Spotify randomly played “Maybe It’s Time” from A Star Is Born, a movie I haven’t yet seen. The song is sung by Bradley Cooper, an actor who continues to surprise me (I’m still not over the way he speaks fluent French!), but I didn’t know that when it first started playing. I just knew that it crept into the Jeep and quieted my mind. Music does that sometimes, and this song was a long sigh of relief.

At the end, he sings, “it takes a lot to change your plans, and a train to change your mind,” which may be my new favorite lyric of all time. Like my father before me, I love trains, tracks, and the promise of the next adventure just around a corner. That promise helps me navigate the perplexity of life sometimes. It certainly did today.

So thank you, Bradley Cooper, for singing out the breath I was holding today.