"Every new beginning comes from some other beginning's end."
-Seneca, via Semisonic in Closing Time
Sitting at the gate at KECP, waiting to board the first leg of my meander to go get the Mighty Columbia in Monroe, Louisiana, where it's been sitting hard broken since the middle of November.
No, I'm not flying Southwest, praise Jesus. I'm a little concerned, however, that we board in 45 and the Delta jet isn't here yet at the next gate. My layover in Atlanta is around three hours, so a late departure shouldn't make much difference. But still . . .
The plan as I sit here entails flying to Monroe, walking out of the passenger terminal and down to the mechanic's hangar to sign off on the repairs, take back the keys, and make the 1 + 40 flight back to ECP, landing here a little after six. I've been concerned about the seasonal fog we've started to see develop in the evenings lately, but a front blew through a couple days ago and we seem to have drier air, and the forecast calls for clear skies and cool temperatures (for Florida, anyway) on arrival back here tonight. Peg's planning her traditional lobsters and champagne for supper. Maybe I'll look for a Guy Lombardo station on Spotify.
The last day of 2024, a momentous twelve months for us as a family and a nation. Issac finally got us to Greece, and we can't wait to go back. But it's not like it was on November 6th, when we were determined to find a way to live there to avoid the MAGA chaos that waits just over the horizon. We wound the clock, just like my UPT instructors taught me nearly forty years ago, abided, drew closer, and didn't do anything rash.
But some big decisions arose out of that time of discernment. Yesterday afternoon I hit the send button on an email to my partners, announcing my departure from D&S effective 1.31.25. We're reaching an age when Peg and I want to spend more time together, and not find me working when P has the day off. If all goes according to plan days off are going to be a fairly regular feature during the workweek for her, and I plan to share as much of that time as I can. We don't have forever, after all. We have our health, a little money in the bank, and the flexibility to work pretty much where we want, when we want. I don't plan to take any more litigated matters, except maybe as a favor, after a friend long retired told me it took him five years from announcing his retirement until he closed his last lawsuit. This would mean me closing the last squabble over bad caulk or untrustworthy business partners around the time I'm turning 66. That'll do.
I'll fill up some of the space created by this new direction with mediations, arbitration, and hopefully estate and tax planning work, using that new skill I'm learning at NYU. But mostly I'll wake up next to P someplace of our own choosing, and try to learn how to exist without the constant gnawing sense of dread and unfinished work that's been the practice of law for the last 28 years. It's time.
So goodbye 2024, not a great year but another instance of my somewhat limited personal theology in action: some bad things happened, but out of the mess the creator of this universe gives us the means of emerging with something better, if we'll only pause and pay attention.
Happy New Year.
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