Fitzgerald Was Not Wrong

F. Scott Fitzgerald in his later years

 Poor F. Scott. Decades later, he is still misquoted. 

We all think he wrote, "There are no second acts in American lives." But he didn't write that. What he actually wrote was, "I once thought that there were no second acts in American lives, but there was certainly to be a second act to New York's boom days" in a 1933 story called "My Lost City." 

And apparently some version of that line about no second acts showed up in his working notes for The Last Tycoon, the novel he was working on at the time of his death at age 44. Some Fitzgerald scholars see The Last Tycoon as Fitzgerald's own second act to regain his stature as a major American novelist.

I know the feeling of the next act. I'm easily now on my 8th or 9th act, maybe more, depending on where I count from and what I count as an act. And 2023 has, for a variety of reasons, made me wonder what my next act is. 

Last week, at an appointment with my PCP, I said to her, "Don't get this wrong, but I never intended to live this long. I mean, I am truly grateful, but I didn't plan on this!" 

We both started laughing at the same time. What a great problem to have!

But that realization—that I never planned on this given the myeloma—has been on my mind all these first 18 days of 2023.

So what does 2023 look like? 

I have stepped away from most (almost all) of the Legal Clinic, a volunteer effort I have spent much of the last decade and a half deeply involved with. I stepped off the steering committee, I stepped away from the day-to-day operations as of the end of the year. Because of some unexpected December problems. I spent several hours in the last days of 2022 working with my friend Mel (who is Executive Director at Andrews House, which has hosted the Legal Clinic for its 19+ years of existence) cleaning up the mess. I left that meeting with a short list of items to take care of by the next day. Later that next day, Warren and I were driving somewhere and I told him I had finished the list and everything was wrapped up with Clinic. He asked me if I felt okay about that. 

Okay? I felt more than okay, I told him. I felt good and I felt done. I knew it was the right decision to step away finally.

One thing that not planning to live this long has done is make me take a long look at my finances. I'm okay financially. I have a small monthly pension from OPERS (Ohio Public Employee Retirement System) from my years at Juvenile Court and, laughingly, my years on the Civil Service Commission (for which I took the modest honorarium as annual pay, causing my years of service to count as OPERS credit, to my advantage when I got hired at Juvie). By my personal standards, I have a good amount in a savings account, mostly funded by my retirement payout and a bequest from a longtime client and friend who died in 2021. I have not started to draw my social security (I am full retirement age) and this is where the "not planning to live this long" financial planning we did several years back comes into play. Warren will switch to my spousal benefit after my death because it is larger than his. If I continue to live on and delay taking it until 70, he will get the largest benefit due me, which would be about $400 more a month than if I start drawing it in this year at any time. When we discussed this several years about with a financial advisor, I had no doubt I would not be here this long.

 Well, here I am. Now what?  

Not the most immediate problem, but definitely a note in the back of my mind. 

 I do not make resolutions when January 1 rolls around. But I do think about goals, as do some of my friends. What do we want to try to do in this coming year? The same words keep coming up: pay more attention to our health, exercise more regularly, gardening (well, of course!), more reading (the same), working on personal projects (sewing, painting, writing). 

On that last one, looking at the changes in my days without the Legal Clinic, I took a deep breath and told myself to start writing. Not "Oh, I'll think about that and get to it later" and certainly not "I'll wait until inspiration hits." Finally, finally, after years of shutting my eyes to it, I am writing every day. Every. Day. I set my alarm for 15 minutes and write. (As I type this at my study desk, I can look sideways and see the words of Richard Wagamese, an Ojibway writer, taped to my wall. "Just write. Every day. Fifteen minutes." Wagamese was right.) Most days, I continue writing after the alarm goes off, but I make sure I get those 15 minutes in.

I have now outlived F. Scott Fitzgerald by almost 23 years. I'm quite sure he did not expect to die at age 44. And I never expected to see 60, let alone be pushing 67. 

Let's see what this next act brings.