Blog Crush

So, I’ve been preparing myself for law school in several ways.  These include useful prep, like reading a lot of law textbooks and beginning my outlines for class; shedding stuff like it’s my job (seriously.  Whole closets of stuff.  Poof.  Trash, Goodwill, whatever.  Get it out of my life!); setting up our utilities in NOLA and changing our address and all of that.  It includes useless and harmful prep, like stressing out about whether or not I will even like the law-as-career, how much time I will get with my son now and in the next three years and in the years after that, and eating candy bars (dude.  I never eat a whole candy bar.  I just don’t.  Who is this strange new person, and why don’t her pants fit?)

 

The most helpful thing I’ve done, though, is find a couple of blogs of mothers in law practice (some in law school, some out).  And by a couple, I mean 27.

 

I can’t meaningfully (or interestingly!  and I always endeavor to be interesting) express how much it means to me to read about these women.  How much I want to meet some of them in real life.  How much their willingness to share their experiences is teaching me about what path I want to take in school and beyond.  I have a crush on half of them.  I want to take our kids on a playdate at a park, then put them to bed, leave the husbands at home to supervise and go out for drinks. 

 

Thank you, law moms!  You make me feel good about this "sorority" (in the literal sense) of like minds that I am joining.  Your wide spectrum of experiences is making this freshly minted 1L-to-be feel like she’s in excellent company.

 

For anyone who cares to read it, I really loved this post by one of these women, in which she ruminates about the tension between career and parenthood.  She took the words right out of my mouth.  This is exactly how it feels for me.   Particularly, "I wake up, go to work, do the best job I can and come home. But it’s strange to not know what I want from it or what I’m working for. Especially when whatever it is that I’m working for is what keeps me from spending every waking second with this guy: (INSERT CUTE PIC OF HER CUTE KID) And if I’m not going to be with him every second, shouldn’t those seconds matter?"

 

Yes.  Every second away from Jack in his babyhood should matter.  Right now, on a normal week, I spend 198,000 seconds away from him, at a job where I patently do not matter (the HR Director told me that again last week – that a Human Resources Manager is not important at this company, and I am not important to this company.)  I can’t wait until the time that I spend away from him is time WELL SPENT.  Time in which at least some of my efforts go towards some end, rather than into a black hole.

 

I cannot get going on this new career path fast enough, I tell you.  New Orleans . . . here we come!