Who am I?

Damn fine question, really.

I’m a former product liability and patent litigator, turned precision medicine consultant, turned microbiome conference organizer, turned start-up founder (the unsuccessful kind), turned healthcare compliance and privacy attorney. Turned . . . to not sure yet. Am I retired? Not retired? Part-time? TBD.

Those were jobs, with a little passion thrown in, all on the science side. Truthfully, I’m a frustrated doctor “wanna” be.

I’m also a lifelong athlete (though I still trip a little on the word athlete), starting as a competitive swimmer, then a fencer, a runner, a triathlete, a CrossFit beast, and now even a pickleball enthusiast.

I’ve been an avid scuba diver since college, when I finally had the cash to get certified (Mom said I could get certified when I could pay for it myself). After 15 years of diving as an Open Water diver, I became a Rescue Diver in Thailand in 2002. During a sabbatical in the early 2000s, I earned my Divemaster in the south of France and became an instructor in Florida. I’ve been diving and teaching, off and on, ever since. It’s one of the few things I’ll confidently say I’m good at.

I’ve also been traveling for as long as I can remember. My grandmother took me to Scandinavia to celebrate my bat mitzvah when I was thirteen, a tradition she started for me and my two brothers. Travel was just something my family did.

In high school, while taking a college-level biology course, my mom gave me a choice: stay home and take the final lab exam, or join her and my dad on a trip to England, Ireland, and Wales. Tough choice, not. Biology could wait, so off I went. That trip gave me my first (quasi-legal) drink, my first international best friend, and my first full-on crush – Jimmy, a charming Scot in his forties who took 16-year-old me to see the Penny Lane sign in Liverpool after hours. And after we’d had a pint at a pub.Swoon.

In more recent years, I’ve added some roles I never hoped to have or audition for. I’ve been an inadvertent death doula. We don’t get told as kids that one day, our parents will become our responsibility, or maybe I missed that memo. In 2012, I moved my folks from New Jersey to Arizona so I could manage their care up close and personal for whenever the shit would inevitably hit the fan. That moment came in 2019, and I said goodbye to Mom in 2022 at 90, and to Dad in 2024 at 93. I was also there for my 88-year-old aunt’s final hours. And in 2021, I spent five brutal and beautiful weeks in New York City walking my best friend of 16 years through her final days as cancer tore her apart.

That was a lot. So now what?

After years of professional effort (and plenty of questioning whether it even was success), and more than my share of personal heartache, I’ve circled back to this truth: life is short. Way too short. So I’m on a mission, to explore the world, to maybe make my corner of it a little bit better, to build a roadmap for what the second half of life should look like – for me. It might not suit everyone, or even you, but hoping it works for me. And I hope to share honest reflections and insights along the way.

The thing is, there is no roadmap for this half of life. We’re handed scripts early on: go to college, get a job, find a partner, have kids, buy the Volvo, adopt the dog, eventually retire and die. Ideally in that order. Even in my early 30’s I was dubious. I woke up one day in NYC and thought, “This is it? This is all life is now? I just get up every day and do the same thing over and over until I die?!” WHY?!?!? Why do we have to grow up and work every day until we retire? And what if we retire and can’t do what we love or want anymore? So I did a thing – I made a plan while on vacation to work and save for 6 months and travel for one year, went back to work and quit within the month, and proceeded to travel for 3.5 years.

And then you hit your 50s and suddenly the scripts vanish entirely. Society just shrugs and looks at you and says, “It’s your problem now. Do whatever you want.” It’s both deeply liberating and absolutely terrifying. Because everything is possible.

And when everything is possible, how the hell do you choose?

That’s where I am.

Unscripted.

Unmoored.

And unleashed.

Let’s see where this goes.