I knew the Dolly Parton everyone knew. The songs, the hair, the clothes, the personality. Back in her peak period she seemed to be everywhere.

Then at some point she faded from public view.

Well, my public view.

Since her death I’ve been reading stories about her and realizing how little I actually knew about her

And damn, Dolly seems to have been the real deal of a human being.

We say that about people sometimes after they die: They lived a good life.

I’ve been wondering what we actually mean by that.

One story in particular got me.

Elvis wanted to record Dolly's song, I Will Always Love You. But Colonel Tom Parker wanted half the publishing rights.

Dolly said no.

To Elvis. To the King.

Apparently it tore her up. She wanted him to sing it. But she couldn’t give away the song. It was hers.

Of course we know what she couldn’t have known then. Whitney Houston eventually recorded it and it became enormous.

But that’s almost beside the point.

When Dolly said no, there was no Whitney Houston waiting in the future to prove she’d made the right decision.

She just knew what mattered to her. She knew what she valued and more importantly she knew her value.

I’ve been thinking about that.

Dolly died at 80, which is right around that number we tend to use when we imagine a full life.

I’m 63. Shit's getting real.

But maybe Dolly has me thinking about the wrong metric.

It’s not just: How many weeks do I have left?

It’s: What am I doing with them? How am I living them?

I don’t have a clever answer to that yet.

Which is probably why I’m writing this.