Winter Solstice

It’s that time of year.  Gray skies.  Light-time fades.  Contracting days.  A barren landscape.

It’s the first day of winter.  The season of dying, or the twilight of life as people sometimes analogize.

For me, it’s an appropriate time to end a cycle.  The death of a lifetime within a lifetime.

The official end to my legal career.

Today, I submitted my request to have the status of my law license changed to “inactive.”  I’m no longer practicing.  And it’s doubtful that will change given the actions of others and finished off by executive order.  A flame stamped out.

It was difficult facing age discrimination when one job expired, the circumstances of which I’ll leave open for the moment.  But there was a bright spot.

I had successfully made it through all of the multiple examinations and was qualified to be a federal administrative law judge.  I made the registry – the list to be considered when vacancies arose.  Not a small accomplishment.

But by executive order 13843, the competitive application process for federal administrative law judges was terminated and the registry of qualified applicants was dumped.  My last shot at re-entering the professional workforce, gone.  No point in editorializing.  It’s now a political process.

At any rate, it’s done.  I worked hard for 19 years to build that second career and the actions of a handful of small-minded individuals bought it to an early end.  At considerable cost.

No regard.  No consideration.  No forethought.  No basic understanding of how the world works.

They didn’t care then and they won’t care now.

But just like the Solstice is the shortest day of the year, each will grow longer now until the summer solstice.  New growth.  New directions.  New horizons.  And there are many stories to be told.

Look out, here I come 🙂

***

Photo: Twilight, and a poem of mine of the same title.

The crack in time and space

between night and day,

darkness and light,

death and life,

Breathe in . . .