Nineteen years ago, I started law school. My parents paid my way through (state) college but I was on my own from there. So I opted for the state law school. The requirement back then was that you were not allowed to be employed your first year in law school. So I wasn’t bringing any income in until the following summer–and then it was more for experience than cash. My hours were generally 3 to 4 a day, max. That didn’t even cover rent, let alone food, utilities (minus cable), and other living expenses. I lived in the ‘hood so that I didn’t need a roommate. My rent was $250 a month. Cheap even back then.

The tuition at my law school back then was just under $2,000 for a full-term semester. I also took 6 credits every summer. That tuition, in rough numbers, was $5,000 a year, for a grand total, tuition only, of $17,500. I got out of law school, as memory serves, owing $32,000 in loans. The extra being for living expenses. Looking back, I could have lived even leaner, and should have. But that’s neither here nor there.

I then decided, well the market was in the toilet back then too–so that nudged me along, to go for a graduate law degree. There’s no such program in Louisiana. The top programs then were NYU, University of Florida, and Georgetown, in that order. I went to UF. Why? It was cheap. NYU and Georgetown were in the neighborhood, again, if memory serves, of around $30,000 for the year, and New York and Washington cost a lot more in living expenses, too. UF’s tuition for a non-resident was $10,000. I borrowed $18,500.

So, upon graduation and entering the work force, I owed in student loans just about $50,000. As it turns out, starting pay for tax attorneys in the NOLA area back then was just about $50,000. It took me ten years to pay off all my student debt.

Fast forward to 2011.

My law school’s current tuition for a year is about $21,750. And UF’s master tax program is $28,500. If I went to both today, I’d come out owing, IN TUITION ONLY, just over $100,000. Add to that living expenses for 4 years, maybe another $50,000 if you do it on the cheap.

And starting pay for tax attorneys in the NOLA area? Well, honestly, I don’t know. I’d guess around, tops, $90,000. Not anywhere near $150,000 (the least debt I’d have coming out today). So instead of paying on student loans for TEN years, I’d likely be paying on them, like many young lawyers I know, for THIRTY.

This boggles my mind. It really does. These are STATE programs. Take off the masters’ degree. For just a law degree, students graduating from state law schools today get out owing somewhere in the neighborhood of $100,000. To likely get a job earning at least $10,000 less than that.

I am not sure the point of this. Not sure if I am saying a law degree is no longer worth the cost. Or that government is failing us by charging such high rates. Or that I should be grateful for the degrees I have that I would not be able to afford today.

Maybe that’s the point. I went to law school so that I could work using my natural aptitudes; so that I could earn a living doing something I LIKE and that came natural to me (the process, not the knowledge). I did NOT go to law school to get rich or to spend my days in court. And so now, 16 years after graduating from law school, and five years out from having paid off all that debt, I have a good deal of freedom because of my degrees. I COULD earn a lot of money. Or I could spend more time with my family or tooling around New Orleans or encouraging the artist in me while I work less but still earn a respectable salary using those natural aptitudes.

And so for those out there today that want to be lawyers so as to earn a nice living doing what they like but are not intending to be high-powered litigators, good luck. Because they will NOT be able to change their minds to work less for any reason. Well, at least not for the first thirty years.

And who many among us is doing precisely what we planned to do even five, ten years ago? It all seems so onerous.

So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past.

The Great Gatsby, by F. Scott Fiztgerald.

When I started with my firm 13 years ago, I was aware that my department consisted of five men all over the age of 55. I knew going in I’d face a chasm in my career if I stayed with this firm when these guys began to retire. But what I did not expect was for three of the five to die within two years of each other and for a fourth to retire in that same span of time.

Lately, with the most recent death weighing heavily on my being, I’ve struggled to make sense of my future — one that feels as though it has no net nor tether any longer.  While I wonder what the hell I was thinking all these years to leave me at this spot.

The thing is, my mentor that retired, he shaped the attorney I am today. I am 100% a better attorney than I would have been without him in my life for 12 years. And when he retired and I spent the next year under the tutelage of his mentor, I was pushed harder to be even better. Although I still feel I have lots to learn, as I know I was still drinking from the fount a mere two weeks ago, I know that if I had to do it all again, I’d chose the same path.

As I now work with some of the families of my mentors, I feel a gentle push from these great men one last time. Like this is their final test for me: Do your job as an attorney to help my own family. Do right by me. Apply what you’ve learned, what you know. I know you can and trust you will.

If I could remember what a religious moment felt like, I might say I was having one. But what I do feel is that my 13 years have been leading, purposefully, to this moment: To the day I have no mentors left and have to rely on my own best instincts. I still have colleagues and even a department within my firm. But I am the acolyte no longer. And it is my purpose now to do legal work for the loved ones of the very men who’ve so shaped me as an attorney.

In fact, I don’t know where my career will be in a year or five. But I know without question I am right where I am supposed to be right now, doing this very work for these very people. Giving thanks every step of the way.

These types of blues will not be rushed. They move from one item to the next, sizing up my entire life, past, current and future.  What IS the point of life?  The priest at the funeral said it’s about the people with whom we spend our time. But I feel that’s a bit lame. I mean, isn’t HOW I spent my time at least equally important, if not more, as WHO I spend it with?

I feel that the meaning of life is different for different people. And that’s why it’s such a tricky question. What’s the meaning of my life isn’t necessarily the meaning of your life or of the life of those we respect.

So then how do we know the meaning of our own lives? What is it for which I want to be remembered or respected? My legal work? My parenting? This silly blog? No one thing rises to the top as THE central focus of my life.  And instead, I find myself measuring up short on any category taken alone. And on all taken together.

I am inspired to work harder, to love more, to be more alive–write, garden, cook, appreciate friends, visit family, LIVE. But it’s hard to do any of that when all I want to do is pull the covers over my head and delay one more day.

And this death is no different from the others of the Capital Letter-variety. And my life is thus changed again. Somehow, in time, I will see the positive of the change; the lessening of the sting of death; the strengthening of my own mettle.  But for now, and the near future, it will be a forced and feared change, a resisted change, a change only of reluctance and necessity.

And so, again, I am living just day to day. Until this death is one I can muster as well.

This afternoon, I spent with friends that unfortunately needed my legal services.  We spent hours going through papers, making calls, developing options.

When my friends left, the Missus hugged me.  After a moment, I pulled away and she stayed hugging.  I resumed my end of the hug and then after another moment pulled away again.  I resumed the hug for a third time and then pulled away yet again after just another moment.  I knew if I stayed in that hug, it’d break my heart in two.  And that isn’t part of the job.  Especially when the Mister is watching feeling vulnerable as all get-out.

This evening, the Missus sent me a message thanking me for today.  I responded that I was sorry about shorting her on the hug; that I knew I’d have cried had I stayed hugging and that just wasn’t what either of them needed.

She wrote back to me the following:

I got choked up when I hugged you so there was no shortness on your end.  It just made me realize what life has brought us through and I just felt overwhelmed.  I kept thinking today of all the work you did in law school and living away and how great you are doing.  It’s awesome that you have a wonderful profession and can spent time with Sun. It is a really extraordinary thing, what you have done with your life and not to sound  like a “mom” but I am proud of you.  And you were so great today! I could never repay you for all you did today with being kind and aware of us and our feelings.  I just want to make sure that you know how thankful I am.  It’s been really tough and I can only get through this with support like you gave today.  It means everything!

And THAT is why I am an attorney.

Thank you, Missus, for reminding me on an otherwise most awful of days.

And when I pull myself away from the still-sagging economy, my funereal office, my work-in-progress home and step out of my own little world, that DAMN OIL SPILL is still spewing and impacting further our lives here in Louisiana.

Yes, these have been hard times.

I struggle to sleep, to relax, to knit or cook.  I’m not depressed or even anxious.  Rather, there’s just a heaviness that is in the air now that has become a part of my  current existence.  It’s as if the terrible New Orleans’ heat is personifying itself  and permeating into the corners of my life to give no relief.

In other words, it’s all lemons and little lemonade.

I dreamed it was the day of our wedding and we were at his house getting ready.  All sorts of family and friends were roaming around.  The house was not what our house really looks like, but that damn pool we need to have dug up was in the backyard, so I *knew* it was in fact his house.  The friends were commenting about a neighbor that too had a pool that needed to be dug up.

Anywho, I was in a spare bedroom getting dressed and went into the master bedroom.  It was familiar but not overly so.  On the far wall was a door to the master bathroom.  And near that was a door I had, yanno, never noticed before.  It was opened, and CS was in the next room.  I walked into the new room and was pleasantly surprised.  We need this space!  “What’s this room?” I asked CS.  “It will be my darkroom,” he answered.  I was pissed.  A DARKROOM?  We need space and he’s going to keep this whole room for himself? Errrg.

Then I see ANOTHER door leading to another new room from the darkroom.  I step into that room.  It is smaller, with a low ceiling near the window.  “And this room?” I asked.  CS responded, “My office.”  More of me being pissed. At CS.

*     *     *

Okay.   I was out of sorts Sunday when I woke up and tried to make sense of this dream.  But then I let it go.  Then it kept nibbling at my memory.   So last night I took out my Gayle Delaney dream materials to interpret my dream.  I had recalled she had mentioned that new rooms was a common theme in dreams.

So it went something like this.

Q. Do the rooms have a specific purpose?

A. Yes, Darkroom and office.

Q. Is there anything new going on in your life that has that purpose?

A. Dark.  Officey? Hmm.  Dark officey? Dark office. DARK OFFICE.

Me to self: ARE YOU FRIGGIN’ KIDDING ME?  Then I laughed at my psyche for being so OBVIOUS yet I couldn’t see it without SAYING IT OUT LOUD.

I started five days in the office yesterday.  And I may not be all that excited about it.  Guess you could say I may have even been a little mopey or dark about it. And maybe I wish my husband’s job was enough such that I didn’t need to work at all.  And that maybe I am feeling sort of that I may have reached the apex of my career.

YA THINK?

So what do I do with this information? What any sensible girl would do.  I took today off. Day Two.

Sigh.

(There’s actually other elements in this dream that could have more meaning, but this seemed right so I stopped.)

He has all the qualities that make a sage mentor: steadfast, adroit, generous, exacting.  His work habits are disciplined; his writing and thought process, fastidious and orderly.  He never screams or loses his temper.  The worst you can do is disappoint him.

Under his tutelage, I began to pick up his habits without me always realizing it.  These many years later, I am still nowhere near as disciplined, orderly, or as calm as him.  But I am on that path.  And it is, in large part, because of him.  Had I tied my cart to another mentor, a less judicious mentor, I unwittingly would have walked down a sloppier path with only my own instincts to have pushed me to be better.

I will miss his advice, his opinion on a file, his interpretation of a statute.  I will miss his amazing sense of humor, his joie de vivre, even with regard to his time in the office.  I will especially miss his quintessentially Southern manners: he says good morning to everyone in the office that he passes (sad that not all of us do that), he holds doors, wears a coat for cocktails in the afternoon, and thinks horse racing is tawdry.

And although he is moving forward to the next, more relaxing, chapter of his life, my not seeing him regularly, knowing he won’t be in the office every day, not having him as my steady rock that always had the ability to calm me, set me straight, and guide me so ardently, will be a great loss, a loss that is merely the measure of the greatness that was his mentoring.  He’s taught me all I need to carry on in his absence.  And I will carry on, having become a better lawyer, a better person, for having his example be the beacon to which I strove.

He’ll never know the true depth of my gratitude nor my love.

The ego threatened.

Or can it be

that it is not the ego

at all

but a real threat

to your very livelihood?

And does it matter

either way

when the answer is the same:

Tis time.

Time to move, grow, fear.

Time to be the best

you ever dreamed possible.

Every time I even think about that last sentence, the air surrounding me evaporates.  I am not ready.  I fear she isn’t ready.  Ok, I think she’ll do fine. Me? Not so much.

I’ve been living these past couple of days wrapping my head around returning to work five days a week; of losing my two weekdays not in the office; of not being with my daughter two full weekdays every week.  Alas.

Since Sun will be going to school five days a week and all of three years old, we feel strongly that she not attend after-care and turn her days into 10-hour ones.  And since her class will start at 8am, 3pm seems a long enough day.  With no after-care as the goal, CS and I plan to rotate picking her up from school, leaving our jobs early on alternating days to get her and do what work we can from home once we get her.  I expect I’ll be picking her up three days a week.

I am currently in the office about 24 hours a week.  Give or take.  This new regime will have me arriving earlier, but every day, and leaving early three times a week.  I expect it’ll get me in the office about 30 hours a week.

Going from 24 to 30 hours in the office, I know, seems like nothing.  And I KNOW many moms work 40 hour weeks away from home and I should be grateful. And I AM.  I AM.  But I still will miss those two golden days I have now that are mine spent at home.  I do laundry, play with Sun, garden, cook, clean, work, nap with Sun; I do whatever Sun and I are up to, and that’s usually just puzzles and dolls and tv and housework.

I fear going into the office every weekday will stifle the decadent golden time I’ve had these two-plus years spent in my garden, in my kitchen, with my young daughter, with time to burn.  I fear it will be a struggle to get into the office an hour or more earlier each day (I HATE mornings) and to get out of the office around 3pm (my afternoons are so productive!).  Can I shift things around and really make the hours mean that more time in the office will equate to more hours being billed?

I have voluntarily worked a reduced load since Sun was born, and it has worked on all levels (well, that reduced income wasn’t wonderful, but, oh, so worth it).  I know I am not good with change, even with change that is good. But I’d expected this three-day a week routine to continue with Sun until kindergarten, and then maybe even beyond for me.  And this sudden about-face has shaken me up.

Our choices, though far more than many families, are not unlimited, and this isn’t the ideal choice for me.  But really?  I KNOW it’s the right choice:  For Sun, our family, my career, and me.  But oh is it gonna be a hard adjustment!