"Goin' Upstairs"

Duane Allman's "Goin' Upstairs" accompanied me this evening on a final run before the race Sunday. My last girlfriend, the one who tipped me toward a celibate bachelorhood, fits the bill of the woman in this song:

You know I'm gettin' old
You don't want me no more
You know I'm gettin' old, baby
You don't love me no more
You done left me, baby
For a younger stud

And the worst part is how I failed to maintain my integrity. I saw the handwriting on the wall; I could have walked away. But I didn't; I kept hanging on, like a child clutching at his mother's breast. "A man's gotta have a code." -- And she broke mine wide open; in my mid-forties I was turned out like a jailhouse punk.

But what's nice about "Goin' Upstairs" is how it ends (something important is being imparted):

Got a house on the water
You know I don't need no land
Got a house on the water, baby
You know I don't need no land
When I'm dead and gone
Bury me in the deep blue sea