(Note: I started writing this on my birthday in late October. Then things became…A LOT. I planned on working on it and publishing while I was on vacation in early November, then my dad had an accident the first night of our cruise resulting in some broken bones. So then the next few weeks revolved around getting him care and back to fighting form. So now I am wrapping things up for the year and turning this into an omnibus birthday/year end wrap up. This post doesn’t have much to do with any professional thoughts or analysis, so if you don’t want to read about my life or politics or philosophy, I suggest you stop reading now instead of getting mad.)
Today is my 49th birthday. Which means that I am in my last year of my forties and starting my 50th trip around the sun.
I spent my 40th birthday in Belize on a snorkeling expedition. On the ride out to the reef, a piece of the boat – I think it was a pulley of some sort – broke and fell on me. The crew felt terrible, more so when they found out it was my birthday. So, after the dive, they kept giving me a lot of free rum punches.
My thirties were filled with extreme highs and lows personally and professionally – and, perhaps not coincidentally, a diagnosis of Bipolar Disorder – and I was looking towards a fresh start in my forties. So there I was, sitting on a white sand beach, pleasantly buzzed, and looking forward to the next decade.
Then out of nowhere a giant wave crashed over me, I swallowed a bunch of sea water and I ended up on all fours puking my guts out.
Friends, in the writing biz we call that “foreshadowing.”
If there has been a theme to my forties, it’s that just when I sort of thought things were okay, they quickly became very much not. I survived – just barely, sometimes – and I don’t know if it’s possible to be the Final Girl in your own life, but that’s what I started to feel like. At the risk of being a cringe Gen Xer, this became a bit of a theme for the decade:
Last year on my birthday I had a terrible headache. Like, very sincerely thought I was dying kind of a headache. It was in a way a bit of a wake up call and I felt the looming countdown to 50 begin.
I looked at where I was and where I wanted to be when I turned 50 and, taking into account how the previous decade had gone, started making plans and changes so that I would be well positioned for my sixth decade.
So at the halfway point, let’s check in:
- After being suddenly laid off and flirting with the idea of full time freelance and consultant work, I now have a full time gig that I genuinely enjoy, is allowing me to grow personally and professionally, is run by people that give a shit about my well being, and still allows me to care for my dad. Also, now I don’t have to deal with figuring out self employment taxes anymore.
- Started working with a personal trainer. Having a front row seat to my dad’s 80s, I’ve seen (and been told by medical professionals) how important balance and muscle tone is. It took about 4 or so months, but I’m starting to see changes in strength and endurance. I’m kicking it into a higher gear for 2025.
- Started doing more creative endeavors. Some of you experienced my bracelets at ILTA and I’ve been trying to do more random things like that as I really can’t paint or draw. I recently accepted the librarian stereotype and learned to knit. I also just thrifted a sewing machine. If Corporate America will not manufacture clothing that will allow me to dress like an almost 6 foot tall toddler, then I guess I will have to make it happen myself.
- Do more self care. No I know, that sounds like a selfish influencer thing, but the weight of being a caretaker for other people and things really started to wear on me. I realized that I needed to start making sure I charge my batteries more (and only expend energy on things that actually appreciated it or were worth the effort) or I was gonna crack. (note from 12/23/24 – I backslid on this a lot in Q4 2024. A LOT. )
Not a bad start. For the next year, my goals are more concrete instead of systematic changes, such as….
- Sort out my digital footprint. I think I found a better true newsletter option than what I cobbled together using a free plugin on my blog. On one hand, I think we’ve seen recently the importance of owning your own digital spaces, but on the other, I know it’s easier for people to read an email than click into my slow website. I am also going to switch blog hosts.
- Go to Europe. It’s been a decade. I think I want to hit London, Amsterdam and Paris, but also Spain is VERY tempting. I’ve also been to all of those places so maybe I should go somewhere new? Ireland? Scandinavia? Austria? I’m hoping for late Spring before crowds get annoying so I need to make up my mind fast.
- Start a podcast. I finally picked a name and theme/style, so that’s half the battle. And no, it’s not “Shooting the Shit with Sarah G.” as I’ve often threatened, but you have to admit that’s a good name too. Some of you should expect emails soon asking to have a recorded chat with me.
- Get an adjunct gig teaching legal tech at a law school. (November 2024 update: I started drafting a syllabus and…it sort of turned into a book outline. Oops. But the good news is that I would have a text to use to teach from! Open access, of course.) That being said, I want to continue to do my Matt Foley guest lectures because I genuinely enjoy talking to The Youths.
So that seems doable. Things are good but 2024 has been a wild ride. (12/23/2024 note: that line was written on October 21, 2024. hahahahhahaha)
NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2024 UPDATE
Well, fuck.
I was genuinely surprised and saddened by the election result. I spend my time in mostly conservative spaces. The enthusiasm for Trump did not seem to be there plus the GOP GOTV infrastructure was greatly reduced from years past. Not only that, I was seeing support for Harris in spaces that I would never expect. I felt pretty confident in a Harris win, plus control of at least the House.
(I was actually at Disney World the week of the election. Let me tell you, Hollywood Studios’ Star Wars: Rise of Resistance HITS PRETTY FUCKING DIFFERENT the day after your country votes in a party that seems to be embracing authoritarian practices.)
(Also, I’m cussing again. If that offends you, sorry, don’t read me anymore. BTW, whoever reported me saying fuck on Twitter to my boss’s boss’s boss and got me reprimanded when I worked at the ABA, I’m cursing you to randomly step on Legos for the rest of your life.)
I don’t know what the next few years will hold. There’s definitely going to be a lot of tragedy and strife on both the micro and macro level. If I wasn’t responsible for my dad, I would probably start looking for ways to find some other country to live in. But he would never leave and I can’t leave him, so here we are. Leaving is not a realistic option for most anyway (perhaps me included), and given the size and influence of the US, a lot of the bad stuff is going to be inescapable.
So what to do now?
Listen, I’m not in the mood to tell people what to do right now, or more accurately I’m not in the mood to argue about what to do, and I lot of what I think you should do will probably scare the shit out of you. (Email me and I will tell you the scary stuff.) So I will just tell you what I think is the absolutely most important:
The biggest act of defiance and resistance and the best thing you can do to guarantee your survival as well as that of others in the face whatever it is that is happening to government, media, and tech, is… be kind. Have empathy for those you interact with. Don’t let yourself become hard and unfeeling. Lose the cynicism. Hope is a discipline and a practice – work on it. Keep your humanity and look for it in others.
One of my favorite pieces of theater – indeed of any kind of art – is the play Angels in America by Tony Kushner. In my more tumultuous years, I reflected on it frequently. Admittedly, it hasn’t been front of mind lately.
After the 2024 election, Chris Geidner of the essential law blog Law Dork, referenced it and it started to shake me out of my dread. Instead of trying to come up with a good end to this post, I’ll leave you with what he wrote…
“In Tony Kushner’s epic play chronicling New Yorkers in the midst of the AIDS epidemic in the mid-1980s, Angels in America, when the Angel arrives, the attention — even from me — is on that opening line: “The Great Work Begins.””
“If you are sitting in pain or fear today, take heart in the initial response of Prior Walter: “Go away.”
“When the Angel presses ahead, Prior continues to fight: “I’m not prepared, for anything ….” Recounting his experience with the Angel, Prior tells a friend, “It’s 1986 and there’s a plague, half my friends are dead and I’m only thirty-one, and every goddamn morning I wake up … and it takes me long minutes to remember … that this is real, it isn’t just an impossible, terrible dream, so maybe yes I’m flipping out.”
“But, the fight — Prior’s work, America’s work — continued. And, by the end of Kushner’s “Gay Fantasia on National Themes” in 1990, Prior closed the story. Addressing the audience in a speech that always has reminded me of Puck’s final speech in A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Prior concludes:
Bye now.
You are fabulous creatures, each and every one.
And I bless you: More life.
The Great Work Begins.
“One of the lessons that I have taken from that is that fear — even justified fear — need not be the end of the story. It might be the beginning of a new story. There will be pain, difficulty, and even death. The harm will be real. But the work can be worth it, and can lead to change.
More Life. The Great Work Begins.
