The Good Stuff

A friend recently noted in her online journal that she is "poised on the edge of events that I think I've been waiting my entire life to experience." Her post is anxious, but full of life. She is excited to be at the place she is in life, on the cusp of major change, but ready for it. I really respect her for being so excited, so "overwhelmed by emotion" by all of the stuff going on around her.

In short, I think that she gets it. That she understands what is worth worrying about. She is looking for (and may have found) the GOOD STUFF.

The GOOD STUFF, for those of you unfamiliar with the term, are those things that really matter, like

the sight of her holdin’ my baby girl.
The way she adored that string of pearls,
I gave her the day that our youngest boy, earl,
Married his high school love.
An’ it’s a new tee-shirt saying: ’I’m a grandpa’.
Bein’ right there as our time got small,
An’ holdin’ her hand, when the good lord called her up,
Yeah, man, that’s the good stuff.

These are, of course, lyrics from a country song. The Good Stuff by Kenny Chesney. The song is about a newlywed in the middle of his first major fight with his wife. He goes to a bar, asks for the "good stuff," and the elderly barkeeper explains that a bar is not the place to find "the good stuff;" that is at home.

I am convinced that the secret of life is fully explicated in country music lyrics.

We are always on the cusp of something. The trick is to remember what is worth worrying about.