I Didn’t Think I’d Get Here
At 58, I can see more clearly what time takes, what fear costs, and why waiting is its own kind of regret.
“Time is not measured in years. It is measured in opportunities you assume you will always have.”
I am 58 today, and that still catches me off guard.
When I was younger, 58 wasn’t something I spent time thinking about. Eighteen felt far away when I was a kid, and now that distance between 18 and 58 feels shorter than it should. Not because time changed, but because I did not notice it passing the way I should have.
My parents adopted me when my mom was 40, and my dad was 37. I was only a few months old when they brought me home. By the time I turned 18, my mom was 58. At the time, that did not seem particularly old. She was just my mom. Present. Reliable. Always there.
Now I am the same age she was then, and while it does not feel old from the inside, I understand something I did not understand at 18. Time is not measured the way you think it is when you are young. It is not counted in years. It is counted in opportunities you either took or assumed you would always have.
That picture was the first one my mom had taken of me as a baby. It is strange to look at it now and realize how much of life was still unwritten at that point, and how little of it you actually control.
My dad died when I was 36. Looking back, I can see clearly that we did not have enough time, but at the time, I treated it like something unusual. A fluke. Something unfortunate, but not something that applied broadly to life itself. I did not take it as the warning it really was.
My mom lived much longer. She passed about five years ago. We talked often, and if you asked me back then, I would have said we were close. And in a sense, we were. But there is a difference between staying in contact and truly being present. I should have made more time, not just for conversation, but for being there in a way that mattered.
It is a strange thing to recognize that you knew better, and still did not act on it.
For most of my life, I stayed focused on what was ahead. The next move, the next opportunity, the next step that might put me in a better position. There is nothing inherently wrong with that, but there is a cost that comes with always looking forward. You start to assume that the people and moments around you will still be there when you finally decide to slow down.
That assumption is wrong more often than people want to admit.
I had a conversation recently with a younger guy I had just met. We connected almost immediately, and it felt like I was looking at a version of myself from 30 years ago. He was capable, sharp, and stuck in something stable but limiting. You could tell he was weighing what he wanted against what everyone else expected of him.
I told him something I wish I had not only heard, but actually followed when I was his age.
People will try to talk you into a smaller life. Not because they are malicious, but because they are afraid. They will tell you to hold onto stability, to protect what you have, to avoid risk. They will frame it as wisdom, but most of the time, it is just caution dressed up to sound responsible.
I listened to that.
I chose stability when I should have chosen direction. I chose what felt safe in the short term, and in doing so, I traded away years that I could have spent building something meaningful. That is not a dramatic statement. It is simply an accurate one.
The result is that I spent a large portion of my life working within limits that I accepted, rather than limits that actually existed.
Life has had its share of highs and lows, as it does for everyone, but the last couple of years have been particularly difficult. At the same time, there has been an unexpected clarity that comes with it. Many of the people whose opinions once carried weight, whether supportive or critical, are no longer here. When that noise disappears, you are left with something much more direct.
You either face what matters, or you avoid it.
There is no audience to perform for anymore.
I am at a point now where I am stretched in every direction that matters. I am trying to be a good husband and father, and at the same time build something through my writing that I believe has real value. I do this full-time, and I take on whatever additional work I can to keep things moving forward.
There are moments where it feels like I am falling short on all fronts. That is the honest part that people usually do not admit. When you are building something from nothing, especially later in life, it rarely looks balanced. It looks uneven, strained, and uncertain.
But there is also something else that I did not have earlier in my life.
For the first time, I am not guessing about what I should be doing.
I know.
That matters more than I understood when I was younger. Clarity is not something you stumble into. It usually comes after you have ignored it long enough to understand the cost of doing so.
If I had stayed on this path 20 years ago, my life would look very different today. That is true. But it is also true that I would not be here, writing this, speaking to people who are listening for the right reasons. There is value in that, even if it came later than it should have.
My 38th birthday picture still makes me laugh. I am standing there in black-and-white shoes and a party hat, wearing a shirt that said, “Obviously, my mom drank, smoked, & dropped acid during pregnancy.”
That shirt used to irk my mom in the sweetest way. Not because it mentioned drinking, smoking, or acid, and not because someone might have mistaken it for a joke about her. It was because she had spent so many years forgetting, in the most natural sense, that I was adopted at all. The fact simply did not sit in the front of her mind. I was her son, and that was that.
There are probably more fashionable definitions of love, but I doubt there are many better ones.
My parents probably would have laughed at parts of this. They would have told me I had it backward, that writing about politics was supposed to be the side hustle and mainstream computer work was supposed to be the real job. And they would have asked, not entirely unfairly, how this path has been working out for me.
That question would not have an easy answer.
But it would be an honest one.
What I would say to anyone younger, or anyone standing at that same crossroads, is simple and not particularly original, but it is correct.
Do not wait for the right time. It does not arrive.
Do not let other people define what is realistic for you. Their limits are not your limits.
And do not assume that you will have the same opportunities later that you have now. Time has a way of removing options quietly, without announcement.
If you want to do something, you have to start before you feel ready, and you have to continue when it becomes difficult. That is the part most people avoid, and it is also the part that determines the outcome.
I am not stopping now, not because it is easy, but because I understand what it costs to stop.
I love you all, and I mean that in a very real way.
Now I am going to get back to work.
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I don’t write this from a studio, a newsroom, or with a team behind me.
I write it at a desk, late at night, between everything else life demands.
This piece is the result of years of getting things wrong, figuring some of them out, and finally saying what I should have said a long time ago.
If this resonated with you, if it made you think about your own time, your own decisions, or what you might still want to change, then you understand why I keep doing this.
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I turned 81 last month. I never thought I would last this long, and now it looks like I still have a long way to go. My health is great. I do have arthritis in my hips from years of climbing and cycling and other insane activities. The theme of my life was something I heard in the movie The Magnficent Seven. When asked why he was there the character told a brief story the theme of which was, It sounded like a good idea at the time. For me, fortunately, the multitude of choices made on that basis largely paid off well.
When I was thirty my son was born, and the sudden responsibility affected me greatly. I shaved off my hippie-ish beard, such as it was, cut my hair shorter, and changed my image to what I thought a father should look like. In doing that a lot of people were made uncomfortable. I decided then and there that I didn't want others' expectations determining the choices I made about my life. As as consequence, I don't have a bucket list. I have pretty much done everything in life I have wanted to do. I have climbed all over the world, cycled several hundred thousand miles. been married three times and finally figured out that it isn't my thing. I am not wealthy by any standard, but am very comfortable in my current place. I have more income than I need to sustain my lifestyle which many might find too restrictive, but which works perfectly for me.
I could not recommend the way I chose to live to anyone else. I have been very lucky, no question, blessed almost. The hard times, and there were a few, simply gave me the perspective I needed to realize when I was actually happy. Freedom is the ultimate happiness to me, being on my own clock, answering to no one for my choices other than myself. It took my second marriage's end to teach me that. The third was brief, and only to help out a friend in need. I consider it my most successful.
There is a price for freedom, but whatever its cost, it is worth it.
I copied your advice to someone younger. I will save it and include it when my grandchildren are on the cusp of adulthood. It’s wisdom learned at the expense of experience, which is the best, and really, the only way to earn wisdom.