Waiting to Exhale

Oh man.  It has been one of those weeks.  Actually, no--it has been two of those weeks.  

I've been billing a lot of time over the last several weeks, and stressing over a lot of work-related angst on top of it.  It may be summer, but July has been anything but fun:  Fitting in billable hours wherever time can be found (at the gym! on the train! with the door closed at work! on the train again!  at home after hours!).  Dreaming about work every night.  Becoming hopping mad over the loss of two billable hours when the internet went wonky on Wednesday night.  And for the last five days:  contending with crazy tension and knots on top of knots in my neck, back, and shoulders.

The immediate future doesn't look much better, although after skipping this weekend's Boston wedding because I had to work the majority of the day, I have made an executive decision to NOT work tomorrow.  And tomorrow before church, I might even go back to get another tui na massage, since this afternoon's was lovely but likely wasn't enough to untangle all those knots.

Our vacation to Florida and South Carolina (for two more weddings!) in September/October can't come fast enough.  I know that it will be a long nine weeks from now until then.  And I'm kind of scared.  I feel as if I am holding my breath--and will continue to hold my breath--for the next nine weeks, laboring feverishly while turning bluer and bluer in the face, and going completely crazy while I'm at it.  Something is bound to explode if I don't learn to exhale along the way.

Not to state the obvious, but...this is a problem.

As you can imagine, there are a number of points in the day where billable work simply cannot be done.  Examples include the shower, quiet time, walking to and from the train, and the small bubble of time right before bed, when I must engage in my pre-somnolescent activities of (1) losing in my latest Words With Friends game with Mr. Squire, (2) chatting with Mr. Squire, and (3) pleasure reading (still slowly making my way through a great Dietrich Bonhoeffer bio).  During these times, my mind is frequently occupied with the following thoughts/prayers/pleas:

• Oh Lord, I can't do this much longer.  When will You free me?  I'm scared to move, but I'm scared to stay. I'm scared, period.  But I know something is wrong here.  At every other point in my educational/professional life, difficulties did not faze me.  I understood them to be a necessary part of the process of reaching goals that I believed to come from You, and I knew You would bring me through them.  No matter how hard college or law school--or even BigLaw or clerking--became, I always knew it was part of Your plan, so to my recollection, the thought of quitting never occurred to me.  Instead, in my younger years, I dove headlong into cesspools of challenge with bravado.  In my more recent years, I steeled myself and forged ahead through thorny thickets.  I didn't think of turning back, or turning away, as I do now.  Why is that?  I sense such tremendous discontent with the current work of my hands when I am devoting so much of my time to it, when it begins to impede on my social obligations or my physical, mental, and spiritual health.  When does this period end?  Can we please make it now--or at least soon?

• And until I get a clear answer from You, Lord, I am going to keep dreaming up other exit options, because I simply cannot help myself.  I do not want to stay much longer.  I'm certain that I am not thinking clearly, and that one day I will regret this season of discontent, and realize perhaps it wasn't so bad after all.  Or it was necessary and had some sort of value.  Will You reveal some of those redemptive glimmers to me?  I don't like regretting my past.  And back to the exit options, well...so far, I've thought of:  permanent clerk for a judge, US Attorneys' Office - Appeals Division, some semi-sleepy DA's office somewhere, IJM, general counsel for a corporation, juvenile advocacy, Federal Defender... and yet how do I know that any of these will actually be better than my current situation?  What I really want is challenging, interesting work + a livable salary + a livable schedule.  I think I need to get out of New York.  Will You do that?  Speaking of that, what was the point of being here anyway--other than perhaps finding Mr. Squire?  I do suppose that's a pretty big thing... and also our church community...also a huge thing... okay, I understand (more) why You brought me here.  Can we go now, please?

• Part of what's making this harder is that it's not just an hours thing.  If this were solely about the billable hours and the schedule, the issues I outlined above wouldn't be so bad.  70% of it (right now) is an hours issue.  The last several weeks, the other 30% has been some of the people I'm working with.  I feel totally unappreciated and undervalued as part of their "team" (really, I feel like their invisible-yet-annoying housecat), and it really irks me.  This, of course, means that throughout the rest of my professional life, I've had the supremely good fortune (i.e. blessing and favor from the Lord) of working for people who do appreciate and value my work.  I'm used to receiving due recognition for the efforts I put in and the quality that comes out, and I'm equally used to generously dishing it out for the folks who work for me.  I just think it's the right thing to do...and it doesn't hurt morale either.  So feeling like the invisible-yet-annoying housecat has been a huge blow.  ....buuuuuut.... at the same time, I have been left to grapple with why this is such a "huge blow" to me.  Why should it matter?--or at least, why should it matter so much?  See next bullet point, because this one is getting long.

• One of my recent revelations is that I care too much about what certain other people think.  And this is not just a social problem; it is a spiritual problem.  God has impressed upon me greatly over the last couple months that my tremendous sin of judgmentalism and bitterness towards certain people in my church community, and my deep-seated resentment of my "housecat-masters" at work stem from the same root issue:  I don't live for an audience of one.  I live for an audience of, like, twenty-five.  And the things I do and the things I think and the things I expect to receive in return are shaped and heavily influenced by the reactions I'm getting from these twenty-five or so people.  But isn't that essentially a form of idolatry?--a form of worshipping parties who are not God, and allowing them to wield power over me that really belongs only to God?  Herein lies the latest deep, dark pit of sin that God has revealed to me.  It makes me sad.  

• In other news, even as I frantically wave my arms at God, attempting to flag down His attention and put in an order for reassignment of work, in my saner and more grateful and reflective moments, I am reminded that during the 70% of time when work hasn't been crazy, this place has been incredibly good for me. Indeed, it has been a place of incredible healing and restoration for my bruised and broken spirit.  The details shall remain publicly fuzzy, but suffice it to say that certain people with whom I was very close during my years in BigLaw hurt me in an abrupt, inexplicable fashion after I left.  From there, I went to my clerkship, where I quietly suffered through a year of feeling ostracized, both socially and politically.  Putting aside the housecat-masters--who are not at all representative of the majority of people I've worked with at this new place--I have loved the folks at my current place of employment.  Socially (not so much politically or religiously, but that's okay), I feel very comfortable and at ease.  I feel fully integrated into the Firm and relish many of the working relationships I have there.  I don't have the paranoia issues that pervaded my BigLaw years, or the feelings of isolation that characterized my clerkship.  It's been really good--and not just good, but healing.  It just occurred to me last night, while discussing this very issue with a coworker over dinner, that it's been a quite a while since I thought about my BigLaw or clerkship wounds.  I used to lick those wounds every single day.  But time has passed, and God has used this place to help me mend in a big way.  Thank You, Lord, for the reminder that Your ways are way higher than our ways.  You are writing a story that's entirely beyond our imagination.  I really should trust You more.  Help me to do that, please.

So...those are my thoughts for this rainy, hot evening.  I feel as if I've exhaled even just a bit, in putting pen to paper (or finger to keyboard) and crystallizing these thoughts that have long been swimming about in my head and heart.  It's a journey... and I'm a bit of weary traveler right now.  But at this very moment, I find peace in knowing that God's my tour guide, and He has the right map.