I’m writing this from the tail end of a few days in Myrtle Beach, where I came to celebrate a friend’s 60th birthday and ended up doing something I almost never do: actually unplugging.
No filing and very little doom-scrolling. Just sand, old friends, wine and cake.
Today is my birthday. And for whatever reason, this one has me thinking a little more than usual about how I got here.
Earlier this week, I did an interview with my friend Kate Brower for her excellent podcast How She Led To Me. Thankfully, Kate didn’t want to talk about Iran or Trump or whatever crisis was breaking that morning. She wanted to talk about the women who shaped me.
Most of you who know me know I’m much more comfortable asking the questions than answering them. I’ve never really talked about myself publicly. And honestly, preparing for this wrecked me a little, but in a good way. Attached is the recording. If you ever wanted to know more about me, here is your chance!
I didn’t grow up around people who were particularly interested in foreign affairs. My obsession with the world came later, thanks largely to a high school teacher who talked about places like Kazakhstan as if they mattered, back when most kids my age probably couldn’t have found it on a map.
But the people who built me weren’t diplomats or journalists or any of the presidents and secretaries of state I would later spend my career chasing around the world.
My grandmother Libby took me in when I was in my twenties. I was broke, making about $12,000 a year at a little local newspaper and wondering whether I had any business trying to become a journalist.
She fed me. She poured me wine. After dinner, I’d take the bottle into her bedroom and we’d watch TV while I complained about whatever terrible job or boss I had at the time. My grandmother always had a show tune, a pep talk and a home-cooked meal ready to make me — and everyone around her — feel special. She passed away in 2003, but left me with the lesson that you can be tough and still be funny and kind, and that it costs you nothing to look out for someone else.
My mother taught me something else. She has lived with MS for decades, and I’ve watched it steadily take things away from her. She just refuses to let it take everything. For her 60th birthday, I saved every point and airline mile I had and took her on a blowout trip to Paris. Then I saved up for another ten years and asked where she wanted to go for her 70th.
She wanted Vegas. She wanted the Bellagio. She wanted the shows. And she wanted to go to Chippendales. So we did.
At the end, she couldn’t get out of her wheelchair to go onstage for the photo, so the Chippendales came down to her. This is a fabulous picture of my mother surrounded by half-naked men that probably says more about resilience than anything I could write here.
Kate and I also talked about my friends who sustain me. You know Danielle Pletka from Hot Takes Happy Hour. I know her as my rock, who knows where all my bodies are buried — and even helped me bury some of them.
And there are the Diplobabes — the women who covered the State Department with me all those years ago. We traveled the world together and somewhere along the way became family. We’ve since been through layoffs, marriages, new jobs, grief, kids and now grandkids. We still get together and do a ridiculous white elephant Christmas every year.
Talking to Kate made me realize something I probably should have figured out years ago. When I think about the people who got me here, I don’t really think about my career. The people I think about now are the ones who picked me up, made me laugh and told me to keep going.
Maybe that’s why this birthday feels a little different. I’m building something again. Cosmopolitics is still a work in progress. Some things have worked better than I imagined. Others haven’t. I’m learning what you want more of, what I want to spend my time doing, and how to make the whole thing sustainable without turning it into something I never want it to be.
Which brings me to a quick update on my slightly crazy birthday experiment.
The $25 annual membership has been such a hit, I am extending it until tomorrow. If you sign up this weekend, that’s your rate for good.
That’s just over $2 a month. I honestly can’t think of much you can still buy for $2. And judging by how much you read, watch, share and argue with me, I’m pretty sure you’re getting your two bucks’ worth.
I still hate asking for money. But I do love the idea behind this experiment: maybe good journalism doesn’t need another expensive paywall. Maybe less is more. Maybe it just takes enough people who value the work to kick in a few dollars.
I’m heading home tan, rested and, for once, actually glad I stepped away for a few days. I’ll be back on Monday. Hot Takes Happy Hour will be back too, with Danielle ready to debate me, cocktail in hand, about something before the week is out.
Thank you for being part of this — for reading, watching, arguing, pushing back and sticking around.
And here’s to another trip around the sun.
