My Backup Plan: Powerball

Today is my birthday. It is also the day after Jay died. That makes November feel like a strange duet — one part candles and jokes, one part quiet rooms that remember what I try not to say out loud. So I’m giving myself permission to write something funny enough to breathe and honest enough to matter.

Let’s start with the fantasy. I win Powerball. I pay off the bills, buy a year of refundable plane tickets, and book the kind of hotel that has sheets with a thread count high enough to make a senator nod respectfully. I hire a driver who knows the difference between Rayburn, Longworth, and Cannon and can parallel park like a magician. My business card reads: Free-Range Legislative Advocate, Professional Fire Put-Outer, Occasional Problem.

Backup fantasy number two: I find a wealthy gentleman who prefers short, round, older women with strong opinions and a mouth that came standard with a turbocharger. He finances the mission, doesn’t try to manage the message, and understands that dinner reservations might be replaced by a markup session that runs past midnight. He smiles, holds my bag while I take notes, and says things like, “I booked you a flight in case the hearing moves.” He’s part logistics, part cheerleader, and completely unbothered when I correct a staff memo before dessert.

Both plans have merit. Neither is likely.

The Real Plan

Here’s the real plan: I keep doing the work. I keep walking into offices where the chairs roll and the clocks never do. I keep speaking for our community in all its breadth and beauty — Active Duty, Guard, Reserve, Veterans, families, and most sacred to me, the surviving spouses and dependents who carry love into places that should know better than to test it. All eras. All branches. All genders, faiths, backgrounds, and political flavors. No one gets left at the door.

Humor helps. It keeps the air moving when the room gets tight. It lets me say the true thing without breaking the listener or myself. I can joke about Powerball because I know the actual odds I beat to get here. I can joke about Prince Charming because I already met a man who set the standard.

Jay was imperfect the way all real people are. He was also brave, stubborn, and mine. He taught me how to stand up in storms I did not choose. He was my last knight in dented armor — the kind I prefer, because shining armor hasn’t been tested yet — and most likely my last in this lifetime.

If there’s a throne in my story, it’s a kitchen table covered in paperwork, a seat on an airplane headed to one more meeting where someone needs to hear the truth without varnish.

Birthdays as Inventory

Birthdays are for inventory. What do I have? What do I need? What can I give away without breaking what’s left?

I have a voice that works even when I’m tired. I have receipts that prove I show up. I have a community that reads, writes back, and refuses to let each other sink.

I need funding that matches the mission and doesn’t try to own it. I need a little more sleep than I got last month.

I can give away some courage. I have extra.

People wish for easy lives. I don’t. I wish for right lives — the kind where the jokes land, the work matters, and the memories stay close without swallowing the room. I want a life where a widow can laugh on her birthday, remember her husband, and still put her shoes by the door because the fight isn’t finished.

The Punch Line

If you came here for the punch line, here it is. Powerball isn’t the strategy. Prince Charming isn’t the budget. The plan is still the plan:

Build a network that pays for plane tickets instead of platitudes.
Train more free-range advocates who can walk into offices without asking permission.
Speak plainly. Document everything.
Refuse to trade truth for access.
Accept help when offered. Offer it twice as often.

If you insist on giving me a birthday present, skip the novelty mug and do one of these instead: share this post with someone who makes decisions, cover a tank of gas for an advocate you trust, pay a hotel night for a surviving spouse who needs to be in rooms of power, print a packet and hand it to a staffer who reads. That’s how Powerball odds get better without a ticket.

As for Prince Charming, if he exists, he can find me at my desk with a spreadsheet, a sense of humor, and a hard deadline. He’ll recognize me by the way I laugh at my own jokes and still spell every acronym correctly. If he shows up with comfortable shoes and an airline credit, I’ll at least hear him out.

Today I celebrate a year older, a love that still has weight, and a mission that refuses to quit. I celebrate every person who sends a message at 2 a.m. and every person who answers it. I celebrate the community that taught me how to keep going when the path narrows and the lights flicker. I celebrate that I can wish for luck and still rely on work.

Powerball would be nice. A patron would be convenient. But the truth is better than both: we have each other, we have the long game, and we have receipts.

And we have a story that still deserves a seat at every table in this town.

said by Tori Seals, because someone had to say it