The Flight of Time

It occurred to me this morning, as I traded the warmth of my bed for the uncertainty of the world beyond my covers that today begins my eleventh month at Kennedys.   I would say “eleven months already” except I came here on February 1, 2021 after having spent more than twenty-three years with my previous firm.   Twenty-three years.  Not quite half my life but significantly more than one-third of it.   That’s a long damn time.  

I am not a young man.  I transitioned from youth to middle age too many years - and too many white whiskers - to remember.  I smile a little at the fact that as old as I am, I am still the youngest of the Kenny sibling sextet.   As a group, we have occupied this planet for a long time.   In my case, I know it has been longer than any number of folks might have otherwise hoped.   May those who espouse that position take solace in the fact that based upon the manner I conducted my day-to-day as a much younger man, I am as surprised as you that I am still here.   Somewhere, I reckon, the late, great Mickey Mantle smiles.   

As do I.  I smile when the oldest and most precocious of my Fab Five, Maggie, looks at me up close when I scoop her up in my arms and marvels at my white whiskers and ever-whitening hair while chuckling, “You’re old, Pop Pop!”  I smile because I know what she does not, which is I am the youngest of her grandparents…at least in terms of age.   I smile because the man I was thirty-plus years ago never could have imagined her, or Cal, or Abigail, or Rylan, or Shea.  And present-day me gets to do so much more than simply imagine them.  I get to experience them.  

Truth be told, changing the trajectory of one’s career at my age was not the most comfortable thing I have ever done.  Not by a long shot.  It was necessary though and eleven months later, it appears to be working out just fine.   Spoiler alert:  I do not intend to spend the next twenty-two years at Kennedys.   I do not intend to spend it practicing law.  As a much younger man the thought of retirement amused me.   I never could envision wanting to do it.  Now?  It energizes me.  It drives me.  

Who’d have thunk it?

-AK