no, i did not fall off the face of the planet. rather, i became a prosecutor and “life as i know it” changed to a whole new plateau of crazy. more than TWO YEARS later and i’m angrier and chubbier, but hopefully a whole hell of a lot smarter than i was pre-career.
let’s take inventory. i am:
- working crazy hours
- not in a relationship, unless you factor in my unhealthy attachment to netflix
- overweight
- on match.com. even though i said never again
- underpaid (apparently i’m working solely for “justice”)
- acquainted with far too many cops (incidentally, they get paid a lot more than us lawyers)
- chronically stressed
- partial to binge-drinking with the rest of the over-stressed district attorneys
- attending far too many weddings for friends and family and zero for myself
- paranoid and checking for mayhem around every corner. yes, i keep a large, sharp knife next to my bed in case mr. rapist decides to pick me one night
- prone to irrational bouts of road rage brought on by the morons who drive around this city
- slowly losing all feeling in my baby toes as a result of wearing heels every day in court for hours on end
- without sex or the promise of sex in the near future
- the owner of 15 suits and 19 pairs of panty hose. yes folks, we’re required to wear panty hose. no it’s not sexy like on tv, it’s just hot and itchy
- amazingly good at multitasking–i can ignore the judge while pretending to avidly hang on her every word, fill out paperwork, AND respond to a half dozen defense attorneys descending on me like vultures!
as i’ve learned at this job, always best to end on a positive note.
you might wonder why so much of that list relates back to my job. or is the result of my job. that’s because being a prosecutor slowly consumes all other aspects of your life until you look back one day and can find very little about yourself that doesn’t relate back to the office. your friends are all work friends. your conversations, even outside of work, are about work. your dating life is restricted by work and also because the search for romance seems like a futile way to spend the precious time you have away from the office. and yet, a lot of that precious time away seems to be dedicated to tv and the couch.
but i’ve been making some changes. there’s a point where you sit up and wonder how you got here and know you need to shake things up or another two years from now it’ll be even worse. i’m not brave (or crazy?) enough to go all Eat Pray Love, but i’ve taken stock of what’s making me unhappy and i’m working on it. imperfectly of course, but making progress. one thing i want to change is getting back to expressing myself in some other way than legalese.
so here i am once again putting words into space and hoping for a human connection.
life as i know it 