45

Once a year I get seriously self-indulgent on this blog and reflect on where I am in my life. There are worse things I could do with my time.

So: 45 years old today. I guess one of my b-day cards got it right: you know you're getting old when you start getting old-age jokes on your birthday cards. The grey hair remains grey--though, remarkably, it hasn't retreated too far up the forehead yet. The weight is down through a random, solemn decision to eat and treat myself better. I'm avoiding fried foods as a lifestyle choice. I'm snacking on things that are recognizably natural foods. I walk more.

And my oh my, is my professional life different from where it was a year ago! This time last year, I was still in Huntsville, Alabama, gainfully employed with a space/technology-focused small business. This year, courtesy of some government budget-cutting, I now AM a small business, back in the city I love, Orlando, Florida. I struggle here and there with finding business and paying bills, but thanks to the kindness of friends, I've been able to house-sit in genteel poverty, an arrangement that will continue through early November. I've had the breathing space to find and build clientele, for which I'm duly grateful.

Having come close to the bottom of my reserves in late spring, I'm now on a path to steady bill paying and taking steps toward improving my ability to expand my line of work (taking a grant-writing class, getting help from a coach, getting in touch with local friends to find new opportunities). Progress!

And here's the thing about freelancing that I'm coming to realize: I have no problem supporting customers, it's bosses I don't deal with well. I'm always willing to help or answer to a customer. A customer has come to me voluntarily, seeking my services. A manager, however benevolent, is there to tell me what to do. I don't mind that most of the time, it's a fact of life; however, the fewer layers I have above me, usually the better I'm able to function. I'm picking the type of work I do, the workload, and my hours of operation. I probably could and should have gone freelance earlier in life, but better late than never, I suppose.

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Do I have any deep, new wisdom at the ripe old age of 45? Just one thing: the most important thing I've learned to do this past year is be me happily, with all the good, bad, and weird that entails. I...

• Wear Hawaiian shirts and shorts for my standard "work clothes."
• Try to stick with aerospace work because that is what I love to do and am passionate about doing. 
• Take a lot of the low-key, low-visibility jobs with the Science Cheerleaders because I'm not particularly gung-ho to get on stage. 
• Can speak on stage (if I must) without much fear or trepidation. 
• Am blatantly geeky about some things, blandly conformist or mainstream about others. 
• Am mildly to terribly conceited, and a linguistic snob. 
• Am back to being a libertarian (with a conservative flavor).
• Have a taste for philosophy, science fiction, history, and terrible puns. 
• Cannot shut up on Facebook. 
• Walk around theme parks, play John Williams soundtracks, and light up aromatherapy candles to relax. 
• Read self-help books because I want to make myself a better person. 
• Live and travel alone because I recognize my social strengths and limitations. 
• Am an introvert with extroverted moments. 
• Have a list of things I want to do, and I take steps to make them happen. 
• Am not in any big rush to change the world or to boss around others. 
• Love Orlando's afternoon thunderstorms and lack of snow. 
• Don't share secrets, am not particularly interested in learning the secrets of others, nor do I wish to share whatever secrets I have with everyone I know. 

It's not a perfect life, by any wild stretch, but I prefer the problems I have to any others. My willingness to be honest with myself about myself allows me to be honest with others--as much as I think they can stand--and that's not so bad for 45. I'm pretty happy being Bart.

Again, better late than never.

41

So around 12:35 a.m. August 6 (Hiroshima Day), I completed my 41st free trip around the sun. What a difference a year makes. A year ago, I was a month away from my three-week trip to Europe and a couple months away from a very cool, potentially program-changing rocket launch. Well, the trip was fabulous, as was the launch, but the latter item didn't matter a tinker's dam because I'm no longer working for said program, and am now about seven weeks away from being out of NASA. Dagnabbit.

I can't complain too much. I've reminded myself, over and over, "Be grateful you have a job when 500 other people in Huntsville (and counting) don't." Still, I wanted Constellation to go to the Moon. I believe it would have, but those who doubted won the political battle, and now the next person to place human footprints in the lunar dust could end up speaking Mandarin or Hindi or even Russki rather than English. So it goes.

My biggest "plan" for 2010 is to hold onto a job. I keep getting reassured, "Oh, they (NASA) will find you something." However, after coming within two days of standing in line for unemployment, you'll understand if I'm a bit dubious of such reassurances. I have skills, I have something of a decent rep as a technical writer, and after a very rough and emotional winter and spring, I have my emotional stability and confidence back. Such are the things that will carry me through whatever comes next.

What have I learned in the last year? I suppose the fundamental thing I took away from the last 365 days is that I am not--and can not be--my job. Nor can I define myself solely by my relationships with others. I need to be some unique combination of talents, beliefs, behaviors, and attachments that might or might not equal Bart Leahy.

I still have things to do, things to learn, things to experience. Depending on how one believes actuaries or futurists, I am still a bit under the midpoint of this crazy thing called a life, and I need to figure out what to do with the rest of it. I spent my birthday evening on my own--dinner, cocktails, a decent book--and I was quite comfortable that way. Is that how I'm going to spend the next 41+ years? I have no idea. Right now, I'd say "I'll get by with a little help from my friends" and call it a done deal.

Where am I, who am I, at 41 years, one day? Bartholomew Daniel Leahy, Homo sapiens, mass 125 U.S. pounds, height 5 feet 11 inches, hair grey, eyes blue and corrected with glasses, face puffyish with grey mustache and goatee. Career: writer; philosophical bent: law-abiding, Graeco-Roman-influenced Judeo-Christian, limited-government conservative, capitalist, advocate of self-restraint and self-defense, as warranted by circumstances.

I exercise as the mood strikes me, I read a great deal, I have the wild idea that human expansion into space is good for the species. I prefer to get along with people and avoid unnecessary ruckuses. I have a sense of humor that hangs on the mostly-harmless side of sarcastic. I am comfortable on my own and am able to differentiate between being alone and being lonely (I count myself the former, not always the latter). I write journals and occasional fiction trying to explain or justify myself to the world, or simply myself to myself. I have a set of goals that I might or might not accomplish between now and my final sendoff, and every day I try to do something constructive with myself to build myself toward one of those goals.

I'm reasonably sure that's where I stand at age 41. Will you or did you do understand yourself so well at this point?