Turbo-Adulting in 2025

One could argue that waking up every morning to the MAGA miasma and the daily news cycle has driven us all to a new level of adulting. But I determined sometime in the last month or so of 2024 that 2025 was going to be a year of personal growth and change and so I am in activation mode in these early days of January. I wrote about the two highlights for 2025 in my last post, but just to recap, new left knee and new household.

But since I started this post, adulting has taken on new significance, as Los Angeles has become the home of apocalyptic fires, first in the Palisades area, currently at 20,438 acres and still only 8% containment, followed quickly by the Eaton fire, at 13,956 acres, with 3% containment. There are a half-dozen other fires in the region, and every day, I learn of the unthinkable total loss of homes by friends and colleagues. There is nothing that hasn’t already been said better in sympathy to the victims of those fires, but I know I join the rest of our community in expressing my sadness and support for those families in their states of loss. For the rest of us not immediately affected, but who rely on the minimal green spaces that LA affords us to hike and get out of our urban environment, it has been devastating to see site after site be destroyed by fire. Here are some photos of hikes taken in 2024 in the Palisades and Temescal Canyon and Eaton Canyon. It’s hard to imagine that these places are gone but nature is resilient and they will eventually be restored.

It is fair to say that everyone in those fire-gutted areas will be doing more than their fair share of turbo adulting in the coming months and years.

Thursday, I decided I needed to do something tangibly productive, so I returned to the City of Industry LA Regional Food Bank volunteer center to help assemble food packages. Driving there from my DTLA apartment, the sky and landscape was a dull, dirty yellow; the air is atrocious and we have been advised to wear N95 masks outside. I only have my KN95 masks left over so have been wearing one of those when I venture outside.

As to my own adulting of late. I feel like being close to sixty-five, I would know all there is to know about the subject, having weathered the loss of my spouse and recent cancer. What would be left? Well, there is the transition in health care insurance that happens for Americans as they reach sixty-five, and which I had proactively approached back in October. I had been the happy beneficiary of health care through SAG through the end of 2024, and like all dutiful soon-to-be-medicare-recipients, I spent two plus hours on the phone going through the most Adulting 2.0 exercise possible, signing up for supplemental Plan G and a vision plan and a prescription plan. This was back in early October and I felt really good. I’d taken care of it. Then, late in October, I’d received a letter from SAG saying that I would be covered by the SAG SR Health Plan for 2025 as long as I signed up for the automatic payments, which I did, confirmed by an email from SAG that that coverage was forthcoming. So I dutifully called back the Via Benefits folks and cancelled all the plans I’d chosen, and signed up for the automatic payment of the monthly payments through the SAG-AFTRA website.

So when I received an alarming phone call on about January 4th from the Via Benefits folks, the agency that SAG has hired to help seniors find new health plans when they are no longer eligible, I was gobsmacked. You aren’t covered, they said.

Imagine my dismay, with an impending knee replacement at the end of February, to receive a call from Via Benefits with the news that I was not covered by any insurance other than Medicare. I fumbled to log into the SAG-AFTRA Benefits site, and discovered that indeed, I was no longer eligible. Phoning Via Benefits, back, there was a 134 minute waiting time and they couldn’t automatically return my call. So while I listened to the dulcet hold music, I shopped on their website for possible plans, and because I had had such a great helper back in October (God Bless you Kevin!), I had copious notes as to the plans we had selected back in October. By the time the Via Benefits person came on the line, I had put them in my cart and paid for them. They begin February 1st. Of course, I had to put down the reason for signing up for insurance outside of the enrollment period. I selected “being unceremoniously dumped from my union or COBRA coverage” – literary license taken there, but effectively that was the reason that allowed me to get it at all. As of today, all the policies have been approved. Great adulting success.

Nails chewed to the nub as I waited for the pending benefits to show up in my account, I turned my attention to the other massive life change – changing my home – “Relo” to you puzzle meisters out there. Back in December, my friend/realtor Jenny had put aside January 7th as the day we’d go look at places just to see what was out there. Mind you, with the knee surgery at the end of February we’d decided I would put my apartment on the market in late March, so I had time to recover. Over the weekend, I fretted with my friends Bob and Susan, “What if I fall in love with something on Tuesday?” Bob, in his eminent wisdom said, “Don’t live in F.E.A.R.” Translation – Future Events Aren’t Real.

Well, as luck and love would have it, after looking about about 8 places on Tuesday with Jenny – she had us on a timetable that was totally unrealistic but which we miraculously achieved, the nearly last place checked all my boxes: in Toluca Lake, two doors down from my big brother and his wife’s apartment, spacious with nice views, big kitchen, dining room, space for an office. It is perfect. We are going back Sunday to see another unit in the same building and after our long day, Jenny and I retired to Mendocino Farms in Studio City to review our options and talk about a timetable.

Our dramatically revised timetable includes listing my apartment next weekend. Just a quick plug for my sweet DTLA location if you work at USC. Easy to get home late at night and I’ve loved the convenience of that brief commute. And the Ralph’s across the street.

In celebrating the year that was 2024, here are some photos in reverse order that show that life goes on in the face of major change and can be magical when you have friends and loved ones to celebrate the victories with. Let’s make 2025 magical.

Wish me luck on my relo; I wish everyone who didn’t have a choice about turbo adulting ease in finding your new homes. Fortitude and resilience will be called on. It has been lovely and life-affirming to see the community rallying with support for those facing incomprehensible loss. Hang in there, friends.