Don't Defend The Shoe: Just Make It Work

In the past four years, pretty much since Day 1 of this odyssey I call My So Called Grown Up Life (which was kicked off, in no small part because after over 2 decades of higher and not-so-high education, I was finally taking on a 9-to-whenever job), I have often had conversations that always go something like this:

Conversation Buddy ("CB"): What do you want to do with your life? Is this really what you want to do? You are good at what you do, but you don't seem very happy. If this isn't what you want to do, you should figure out what is. Life is too short not to be happy.

Me: Stammerings of semi-coherent statements that all I want to do is do a good job and be happy, interspersed with confessionals that "things have been hard" and "I feel like nothing I ever do is good enough" and "I just don't want to be a burden or let anyone down." And then the inevitable: *Tears welling up in eyes*; *One tear trickling down cheek*, *The levee then broken, the ensuing downpour begins.*

The tear ducts thus in full effect, the conversation is over.

Typically, at this point, I would then get a hug from the Conversation Buddy - as they are usually a supportive friend or sympathetic family member - and reassurances that I will find myself someday and that it will all be fine.

I had another version of that conversation today, but instead of a supportive friend or family member, insert a partner (or rather 2 - one in person and the other on speakerphone) and after the tears, subtract the hug but insert a kindly, if somewhat uncomfortable, smile, and thus, what you have before you is an exact re-enactment of my yearly performance review.

Never in my wildest dreams did I ever imagine that I would be in the position of having to explain my inner-turmoil to my bosses, but what else is there to do when they come to you with one question: "Do you really want to be here? You don't seem happy. What do you want to do?" Okay, that is three statements, but they were pretty much asked/stated/posed in succession over and over again, as I hedged and spluttered in search of the appropriate response.

I don't think I ever came up with one. I just started to cry.

This was probably the kindest work review/intervention to ever take place, in that every question was followed with a very nice compliment of my work. The issue is primarily my attitude, or lack of one. Seniority brings privileges, perks, and pay-raises, but it also brings increased scrutiny and new levels of assessment, so now, in a sort of bizarro America's Next Top Litigator, the panel of judging partners want to know if I really want to reach for the brass ring of partnership. And now, at long last, the herd of folks around me having considerably thinned over the years and the stress having mounted and accumulated, it is apparent to everyone that as the ring bobs and weaves above myself and all of my colleagues, I am no longer jumping for it. No reach. No grasp. Nothing.

The truth I have always told myself is that I was never jumping for it. I never wanted the brass ring, that I never actively participated in the farcical race towards parthnership that I once read described as, "An ice cream eating contest, where the prize for winning is more ice cream." The truth as it really stands is probably somewhat more obscure than that. I live to please, ever the junkie for the approval of others, and the only thing in this world that has ever garnered me any attention has been my academic, and by extension, my workplace success. All the while that I railed against the "oppression" and "outrageousness" of my job, deep down, I believe I thought, or even hoped, that if I stuck it out long enough, I would rise to the occasion and learn to embrace it, if not love it. I could be the partner at 31, a wunderkind of the legal world. Even if love continued to elude me, people would still certainly be impressed with me. And somehow, I must believe that this would be enough.

But I know better than that. People are "impressed" by me now - high-powered job, high-powered education, all on a high-powered, fast-forward pace - but how happy has that made me? Time has sped up on me with each passing year. This is apparently common; most people ascribing the increasing temporal warp speed as a function of getting older. But I think there is something else to it: If you are unhappy, it is nearly impossible to lay claim to your present. The minutes and hours of every day slip through your fingers like some opalescent viscous fluid, and, rather than trying to cup your hands and hold as much of the fluid so as to revel in its magnificence before it inevitably slips away, you simply open your fingers wider - at best indifferent to the powerful trickle between your fingers, at worst, actively willing the trickle to become a waterfall.

This is how I lost 2005. I spent the entire year, willing each day to go by, simply to get to the next. I forgot to take hold of some of that time, to bathe myself in the euphoric and simple joy that certain minutes of inevitably life hold. As it stands now, my job is not to blame for this state of affairs. It has, however, become an indellible symptom of a greater issue. I must claim my life.

Life is more than impressing people, more than seeking approval of others, more than "doing the right thing." Life is about about people, about love, about smiling eyes, about deep-seated mourning. Life is about experiences.

I have the option to continue on the track that I am, but it will require much more of an active investment by me. I must choose it.

No matter what I do, I must now choose my life.

"What do you want to do?"

I still don't know. But a choice must be made.