Today I am 39 years old. I remember being in grade school in the 1970’s and thinking about the year 2000. With disappointment I realized I’d be 34 and too old to even enjoy the excitement of the new millenium; my life would just about be over by the year 2000.

I wrote this song last January and am publishing the lyrics now that it’s current — my next birthday WILL be my 40th — and in danger of becoming out of date soon since it seems I’m no longer manless, finally. Finally. (finally). Sing it to yourself in blues twelve-bar form:

Forty
©Regina Rodríguez 2005

I’m coming up on forty
Might as well be ninety-nine.
I’m coming up on forty
Might as well be ninety-nine.
I have never had a man
I could legally call mine.

I’ve been dating 23 years
Longer than some marriages.
I’ve been dating 23 years!
Longer than most marriages.
Oh, I know just what the growing-
old-alone terror is.

I gotta rev up my own engine
Got no man to treat me nice.
I gotta rev up my own engine
Got no man to treat me nice.
Only good thing is I never have to wait to do it twice.

Some men think “divorce-in-progress”
is the same as bachelorhood.
Some men think “divorce-in-progress”
is the same as bachelorhood.
But their wives don’t always agree
and I’ve learned to listen good.

Every day I’m getting closer
to the one I’m looking for.
Every day I’m getting closer
to the one I’m looking for
Or at least I’m getting further
from the crap that came before.

I am coming up on forty
Might as well be ninety-nine
I am coming up on forty
Might as well be ninety-nine
I have never had a man
I could legally call mine.

That’s my whine.