I turned 65 this year, and have been playing (indeed) longer than some of our youngsters have been alive, since the mid 70's.
Oh hell yes, part of me says I should have been able to eat ------------ (insert your favorite scary-good bassist right here)------------ for lunch by now. And yes, it really didn't work out that way.
I went through my younger years working, worrying, studying, sleeping with the damn thing, I was consumed by it. Really wasn't much good in talking to me about anything else, I was so blinders-on about it, a lot of life passed me by, that I'll never get back. I got pretty good on it. But for years I had the 'gunfighter' mentality, always on the lookout for somebody that's faster . . . . . and worrying about it. And I made great money back where I lived prior to moving to Nashville.
Moved to Nashville, thinking I could be one of the 'boys in the band' for an artist. I was 35 when I came here, had been around plenty already. Put myself out there, tried hard for several years . . . . . and got nowhere. Frankly, there were better guys in some cases, and I was terrible at networking and 'the hang'. Probably because I spent all those years so self-absorbed I never developed those skills. And here, 'good' really doesn't mean much, because everybody is. A lot of it is who you know, and I just didn't ever know the 'right' people. I had a family to support, and I just could not walk away from day jobs and leave them wanting so I could play for 'exposure' or $20 a night, I couldn't do that to them, and that's where I found myself.
So I did some Opry subs for a few friends, toured with some has-beens for a few years, and it just didn't work out as I hoped. And that's OK. There's lots of great players here who never quite hit it, and those big opportunities are few and far between, and interestingly come with their own problems.
I'm a sideman. I don't write, I don't have that spotlight personality, I'd just hoped to work and stay with a good band for an artist. I knew I wasn't going to knock any of the big guns out of work, I just hoped to find my own little spot, but I didn't have the right preparation or the skills to do it in this environment. Hard to admit but true.
And I can live with that, at least I tried. It's worked out well, I love Nashville, made a good home for myself, and for any kind of picker it's a great town what with the infrastructure here, the stores, the techs, it's a center for the business, so it's great even if you're not a working pro.
It was disappointing on some levels, and I frankly couldn't touch it for a year or two. Then I remembered I do play like a really good me, it does a lot for me, and now I enjoy it again around the house. After 20-odd years in the trenches, I'll never play out again. I no longer have the patience, I would become quite rude far too quickly, and I'm far happier not sweating it out in clubs any more.
As I look back, sure, there's lots of things I could have done better. Hindsight is like that. But I know how I got here, and most of the decisions were right for me, and as a married man, right for the people who depended on me. With a different life, things may have gone differently, but I only have the one I had, and really have no regrets. Far worse could have happened, and after meeting and knowing a lot of 'successful' players here, and what happened to them, I may have got the better end of the deal NOT making it.
I was utterly stunned one day when a very well-known friend of mine, whose gigs would instantly tell you who I'm talking about, observed one day looking back, that he wished he'd have been a plumber instead. Geez . . .
And probably my best musician buddy, obviously self-employed, who did a lot of 'B-Team' sessions, went in the hospital with heart trouble, had NO health care, checked himself out early to avoid a mountain of a bill, went home and dropped dead the next day, my next door neighbor.
Somehow . . . . . when I saw The Beatles on The Ed Sullivan show and was moved to my core like so many, ALL THIS was not what I envisioned for myself. But I can still play and enjoy it where I am now, so maybe that's the only thing that's really important. And I'm still pretty good at it . . . . . .
But you know what? Living the dream because every time I hit that E string and I can feel it reverberate in my diaphragm, I remember why I started down this road in the first place... 
