I’m Not Afraid of Growing Old

words & music by Doug Howell (29 Oct 1979)

clocks
it’s so disgusting how they tick away the days
sometimes I can almost feel my youth
slip through my fingers
I can feel it slippin’ away
but even though it’s different now
than it used to be
I can take the changes
just as long as you are here with me

I’m not afraid of growing old
’cause I’ve got you to have and hold
love just keeps on growin’
with the time
aging like wine
the years go by and still I know
your love will never let me go
and come the end of time
you’ll still be mine

years
it’s so alarming how they seem to pass me by
sometimes I can almost feel the memories
rushing right past me
scares me how they keep on rushing by
the future’s so uncertain
and people come and go
but with you here by my side
I’m not afraid, so let eternity roll

I’m not afraid of growing old
‘cause I’ve got you to have and hold
love just keeps on growin’
with the time
aging like wine
the years go by and still I know
your love will never let me go
and come the end of time
you’ll still be mine

© 2020 Creative Measures LLC (ASCAP)

Reviews

Well, I got a notification about your songs, and let me say that your voice still resounds with that powerful emotion you had when you were younger! Interesting I listened to this song today just after making reservations to go to Okoboji this summer so we can attend the memorial service for Jeanne, and my long history there leaves with me that feeling that “I can almost feel the memories rushing right past me.” Miss you. —Randy T.

…just wait until your my age. All the old ladies at KTA say ” no unco, you go first. —David S.

Another good one, time sure does go fast, except when sitting in a federal jurisdiction class. Thanks Doug. —David W.

Songs sometime have to grow on me. This one touched deeply at first listenHave loved your music since those 1970’s days in Ann Arbor. Thank you! —Susan R. S.

Beautiful —Linda C.

Getting old sucks but it usually beats the alternative. Glad you continue to share your stories, your art, and yourself with us! —Mike Z.

Thanks, Doug! I’m a good deal older than you are and aging hasn’t been so bad until recently when psoriatic arthritis caught up with me. Your song touched my heart. —Marilyn T.

I’m glad you found David — and I’m grateful to still have my Joe. But now that I’m facing 60 in just a few months I’ve been thinking a lot about growing old lately. To be honest, it’s been a bit depressing as we both struggle with health issues. I also think about being alone someday if Joe goes before me. None of these things I have any control over — and worrying about it only creates fear. Thanks for reminding me through this poignant song that we’re never really alone. No matter what challenges lie ahead we must believe God will always make a way because He loves us & will never forsake us. —Jay E.

2020 Notes

How many times I had heard the saying, “Growing old is not for the weak of heart.” I always suspected it was true, but over the last couple years, the truth of it seems to have been confirmed on almost a daily basis. The effects start out rather gradually and quite benignly: pounds seem to come to visit a little more easily and leave only with the application of more and more gargantuan effort. Hair ceases to grow where hair is supposed to grow, and begins to thrive in places you never even knew you could have hair. But wait. Things get much worse from there.

I commented to David awhile back, “You know things are getting bad when the highlight of your week is having a skin tag fall off the middle of your head.” Yes, folks, that’s what it’s come down to. Well, some days it seems like it anyway. Since my prostate cancer diagnosis and operation in 2015, seems like the onslaught of oldness maladies has accelerated. I can’t help but notice that people have stopped saying I look young for my age. And I’m routinely addressed as uncle at the stores. (A term of respect, you know.) A raft of age spots has started popping up, too, forcing me to smear lovely noni pulp all over my face. (We grow noni here in Hawaiʻi. It’s very good for your skin.) And then there’s those skin tags, appearing suddenly out of nowhere, in only the most high-profile, inconvenient locations, as if you’ve been touched by the magic wand of a Skin Tag Fairy. Most of us try to laugh it all off when others are around, but I don’t think too many find these things easy to take when it’s just you and the mirror.

Every once in a while, of course, something even more serious happens. In my case, I received as a Christmas Eve gift a retinal detachment in my right eye. Cause? Seems that while I was celebrating the baby Jesus’ birth, I got one day older. It’s always nice to get a prize for something you do naturally, isn’t it? Anyway, my symptoms were confusing, as it started with a common anterior vitreous detachment, which is not harmful in most cases. But then things progressed, and I didn’t realize how serious it was until things really started going dark and lopsided. After three operations, the last two of which had to be negotiated in the midst of the novel coronavirus outbreak, I’m really thrilled to tell you that my right eye is now seeing about 75% as well as it did last Christmas Eve, give or take a few hundred residual bubbles, and some wonkiness in the lines and text. You know, I think I was always pretty thankful for my eyesight, but my thankfulness has now gone to the next level. My sincerest thanks to the Kaiser healthcare team who led me through this very scary period of my life.

The weird thing is that even when I was quite young, I had a thing about growing old, a sort of lurking fear, but not because of all the things that might go wrong with my body. It was growing old alone that scared me most. For me, that became the mother-of-all-fears, and you’ll find that same theme surfacing in some of my other songs, too. References to “rocking my life away.” In fact, I bought myself a rocking chair at the ripe old age of 25. Not so hard to understand, I guess, given the fact it wasn’t until I was 34 years old that I even let myself consider the possibility that there might be someone out there for me, that maybe I, too, could find someone to love. But it was that very prospect—that deep loneliness and longing—that brought me closer to God.

In October 1979 I was on one of my last long, wonderful singing tours, and I wrote seven songs during the trip—two of them on my birthday. This is one of those. A sort of birthday reflection, I suppose. Of course, when I wrote it, I had no idea there would ever be a love in my life, much less a husband. I was singing this to God and God alone. But now that I have David, I find that it has taken on an earthly as well as a heavenly meaning. Just like all the other songs I’ve been revisiting: the meaning only seems to expand and deepen as time goes by.

Music Notes

I was gravitating toward a more orchestral treatment for this one, but a couple people I’d shared the lyrics with counseled me to keep it simpler, so I did. Besides the piano part itself, I added several piano-esque sounds created with the Una Corda, a specially built piano and instrument plug-in playable via Native Instruments’ Kontakt sample player. Nice to do things a little differently from time to time, and it was fun doing something completely different than the full orchestra arrangement I’d just done for “Oh, September” last month.