October 24, 2011. Look in the Mirror

It's 6:34 in the morning and I am sitting at my desk. I was never a late sleeper, but there is no reason for me to be in the office at this hour, but every morning I am.

The alarm goes off at 5:00 AM. By 5:30, I stop hitting the snooze button. I'm at my desk by 6:20. I'm not working, but I'm here. I go for the same walk every day, have my coffee at the same bakery, play the same games on line when I want to take a break. I have become a creature of habit.

I rarely drive anymore. My business, like many others, is slow. Can I blame Parkinson's? Parkinson's may have pulled the trigger, but I loaded the gun. When first diagnosed, nearly six years ago, I didn't take matters in hand, I moped. One day about two years later, I realized that I was wasting my time.

My business was collapsing. But this I foresaw. I'm a Real Estate Attorney. Any Real Estate Attorney who didn't know that sub-prime lending was going to destroy this economy, is either stupid or lying.

I sat at closings. knowing that when the mortgage adjusted, these poor people were going to be foreclosed upon. One person, I helped convince to walk away from the table. He had a good job. When we saw the mortgage, it had a "teaser" adjustable rate and negative amortization. The mortgage broker refused to negotiate. The Seller was nice and willing to wait for my client to get a better mortgage.

This happened on a Friday. By Monday, the mortgage broker called me, "What can we do to save this man's deposit?" I responded in my normal calm, classy matter, "Where were you on Friday. You asked this man to pay for everything but the Vaseline." We closed exactly one month later.

SO the crash was inevitable. Yet I did little to move my business in another direction. This wasn't PD's fault. Nor was it PD's fault that I didn't save for a rainy day.

I'll make it. I got a great support system. But without lecturing, You never know what will hit you. Many of my friends have it far worse than I do. I refuse to feel sorry for myself, because I, like most other people, got a disease. I will feel angry at myself, for stupidly thinking that I was immortal, and not fully preparing for this day.