This was always one of my favorites, and I think to many of us with more than one hundred pounds to lose, especially those of us who have carried it for a lifetime, or a very long time, the chorus (highlighted) has some meaning. That's kind of what it all boils down to for me. I am middle aged, but you could substitute "overweight" and it would be almost exactly my feelings.

I wanna beat this, and I wanna do things I've never considered because I'm too damn big.

"The Real Life" by John Mellencamp:

Suzanne divorced her husband
She got the keys and the car and the home
But her friends were really his friens
No one stops by to see her much any more
So one night, she goes back down to
The old haunts
That once upon a time were her own
She didn´t know nobody out there no More
And the whole experience just made her
Feel so old
She says

I want to live the real life
I want to life my life close to the bone
Just because I´m middle-aged that
Don´t mean
I want to sit around my house and watch tv
I want the real life
I want to live the real life

Jackson jackson was a good kid
He had four years of college
And a bachelor´s degree
Started workin, when he was 21
Got fed up and quit
When he was 43
He said, my whole life
I´ve done, what I supposed to do
Now i´d like to maybe do something
For myself
And just as soon, I figure out what
That is
You can bet your live
I´m gonna give it hell
He says

I want to live the real life
I want to life my life close to the bone
Just because i´m middle-aged that
Don´t mean
I want to sit around my house and watch tv
I want the real life
I want to live the real life

I guess, it don´t matter, how old you
Are
Or how old one lives to be
I guess, it boils down to what we did
With our lives
And how we deal with our own
Destinies
But something happens
When you reach a certain age
Particularly to to those ones, that are
Young at heart
It´s a lonely proposition when you
Realize
That there´s less days in front of the
Horse
Than riding in the back of this cart
I say

I want to live the real life
I want to life my life close to the bone
Just because i´m middle-aged that
Don´t mean
I want to sit around my house and watch tv
I want the real life
I want to live the real life.

Here is hoping you get what you wish for! I can think of no better gift!

I feel like you do, but I can't describe it. Deep down inside we all want better for our lives.

Marty,

To me, this song has always been about the indescribable longing for something better. It evokes a longing that I have had my entire life, but that I'm just now getting around to doing something about.

The real life is as good a description for what I want as anything else. I'm sad that I did not act sooner.

"I'm sad that I did not act sooner."


You are acting now. That is what counts.