I watched a short YouTube video of the late Etta Baker playing the Piedmont blues on an acoustic guitar. The smile never left the 85-year-old’s face as she strummed and picked at the strings.

Her hands reflected a lifetime of hard work and plucking at a guitar in her scant spare time. Late in life, she was recognized and heralded as one of the blues greats. Ms. Baker played all of her life until she passed away in 2006 at the age of 93.

Listening to her, I was swept back to the days when my youngest boy was a teenager and played an acoustic guitar constantly. I’d sit at the bottom of the stairs and listen to him play tunes over and over until he had the finger picking just right.

Today, he’s a husband and father of four. He and his wife have a busy home life that includes plenty of time with the children and tending to the barnyard animals. Throw in a day job and commute along with renovating an old farm house, and their days are packed.

The guitars that were in his hands constantly are now put to the side as parenting and home-owner responsibilities take the front burners.

I wonder how many people have musical instruments tucked away in the tops of their closets, waiting for when they tell themselves life will slow down and they can start playing again.

There’s probably hundreds of us with a half-finished project stuck in the back of the laundry room. Maybe it’s a blanket we started to crochet or box of dried-up paint and a half-painted canvas.

Eventually we forget about those projects because we don’t have time for activities that don’t get the floor mopped or earn us overtime at work.

There’s also bills to pay, grass to mow, homework to check and the dog begging for an evening walk.

We need our jobs so we can put food on the table, and that means not only buying the food but cooking it, serving it and then cleaning up afterwards.

By the time most people finish with their “have-to” list, there’s little time for the “I wanna” list.

Life, we say, gets in the way.

Where we’d once sing the entire “Rubber Soul” album in our rooms – rewinding over and over to listen to “I’m Looking Through You” at least five times in a row – we now might put some earphones on and listen to John, Paul, George and Ringo while folding clothes or loading the dishwasher.

We hide away the things that once gave us immense satisfaction and pleasure because, as an adult, there’s never a right time and there will never be enough time.

Every once in a while, though, we can think back on a time when we did have enough time and little inhibitions. I’ll admit to dancing in my room as a teenager to “I Can’t Get No Satisfaction” like I was Mick Jagger on the stage.

I’d be shaking my shoulders, trying my best to master the Mick swagger, snapping my fingers and head back and forth as if the whole world was my stage.

Now the only dancing I do is if I get in the shower and the water’s too cold. But maybe it’s time to dance whenever the music’s poppin’.

As Ms. Baker got to the end of the song, I made a quiet wish that my son finds his guitar, heads out to their front porch and plays a chorus or two of “Blackbird” so his children can hear and know the musical talent that lies in the strong hands that tuck them into bed at night.

 This column was originally published in The Fort Bend Herald.