You Can't Fight Your Gene Pool, But You Can Shape a Life Around It
The list of things going sideways in my body is longer than I'd like, and it's made me surer than ever about the way I choose to live and work.
Midlife Nomads explores how people are redesigning work, travel, and life in our 40s, 50s & beyond.
Happy July, readers!
I realized today it’s been a minute. I’m home in Canada catching up on all the things… too many appointments, qt with my boys, and even a press trip up a mountain, and a book launch on a boat! What a trip.
Oddly, my partner is down in Nicaragua so I have the home base to myself. Well, myself and Lido. It’s actually his house; he just lets us stay here sometimes.
Typically when Trevor is traveling, it’s on his vacation time — and I’m with him. But like I said, appointments.
There was the annual bleeding disorders check-up, and one dentist appointment that led to a referral to another. The pharmacist appointment to make sure the blood pressure meds aren’t interfering with the migraine meds, and the autoimmune gremlin is still doing okay without the medication that messed with the blood pressure. The appointment to get the 3-month needle that keeps me in menopause at 45 yo (thank the goddesses). The neurosurgeon appointment coming up in a few weeks to have a look at Fred the Friendly Aneurysm.
It feels like a lot all crammed into a few weeks, I suppose.
And it surprises me sometimes, at these appointments, when we go over my file that there are these things going on, because I actually feel great about 95% of the time.
It sneaks up on you, doesn’t it? I’m doing everything I can to stay well, but you can’t fight your gene pool.
These not-insignificant reminders of my vulnerability and mortality are a strange kind of validation, though. I don’t know how I would have made it through the last 20 years without fully remote work and the ability to shape a career around all the other things that needed — and deserved — attention first.
That’s what I mean when I say a more sovereign, independent life isn’t reserved for the already-wealthy, or some special class of people. My work-from-anywhere life started as a young mother with few options in small town Canada. It’s only grown more necessary as my parents aged (and so am I…).
Maybe yours starts after a layoff, divorce, or health crisis. Maybe it starts out of boredom, or that nagging feeling your life just doesn’t quite fit right anymore.
Or maybe it starts right now.
Nobody could have told me, twenty years ago, that it would turn out like this. Girls like me, with an upbringing like mine, didn’t dare dream past restaurant or factory work. Designing a career around a life (and enjoying it, no less) wasn’t on the menu. You took the job that was there.
It didn’t happen in a leap. It was one small realization, then a decision, then another, and most of them didn’t feel like much at the time.
And now Lido’s asleep on the floor by my feet. Trevor’s texting me photos of the palm trees and getting my desk there set up. I’ve got a neurosurgeon in a few weeks and a fistful of appointments behind me, and I’m sitting here writing to you, working around all of it.
Twenty years ago I couldn’t have pictured any of it.
You don’t have to know exactly where you’re going, either. Not when you’re just getting started, and it’s never too late to move in another direction.
ICYMI on Midlife Nomads
A new shortlist has dropped, too.
It might feel too early to look ahead to January, but there are some decent deals to be had by booking your month-long stays ahead:
The Shortlist: January 2027
Don’t we love January? The holiday pricing bubble finally breaks. Places that were overbooked and overpriced in late December are suddenly workable again. Flights soften, the good rooms open back up, and the long-stay discounts that vanished over Christmas quietly come back.
Recommended Reads
These are a few of the more interesting things that have crossed my desk this past week…
Brian Clark at Further just launched his Leading Expert Launchpad, a four-module course on building a business around your expertise instead of chasing clients one at a time. The free intro video lays out the full framework if you want to see how he thinks before deciding whether the premium course is for you.
The Premium membership bundles all of this — the business-building courses, the frameworks, the investment and home-base guidance — plus all his previous courses, and it's honestly one of the highest-value subscriptions I pay for; I get more out of it than almost anything else in my inbox.
The Quiet Transition: What Men Get Wrong About Menopause (And How to Fix It), Nomads 50 Plus - The 50+ nomadic version of the Manosphere is supportive of our peri- and menopause struggles, and I’m here for it.
Taiwan Just Launched a 2-Year Digital Nomad Visa—Here’s Who Qualifies, Condé Nast Traveler - Taiwan remains high on my wish list
Climate crisis reshapes travel as weather risks grow in 2026, Asia News Network - 74% of travelers now consider extreme weather an important factor when planning trips (I know I do… how about you?)
Then I stumbled across this one in HuffPost: What Is A ‘Hush Trip’? This approach to travel carries many benefits, but the risks are difficult to ignore.
This is such a bad idea, for a lot of reasons. The answer to “Gee, I wish I could work remote but my boss won’t let me” is never, “What they don’t know won’t hurt them.” You can expect a piece from me soon on why this is a really, really dumb idea and a roll of the dice.
That's it for now. Until next time, may your air conditioning stay strong and your wifi stable.
✌🏻 Miranda