Random Pensées

This one is for me

Hell, I may not even publish it. I'll wait and see. If I do, I warn you, this a really long, disorganized, extended look into my head at the moment. I am not writing it for you, whoever you are, but for me, as a chance to try to figure some things out.

Still here? The rest is in extended entry below:

* * * * *

There is a coiled sensation along my jaw line and up behind my ears, a suggestion of shallow breathing, a pre-adrenaline feeling. Can't really describe it better than that, I suppose. It is a feeling like something is about to happen, like we are poised for a great change. There could be several reasons.

First, after only being with us for not quite 90 days, the new nanny may be resigning her position. This is not ideal. The timing is unfortunate. The reasons, while not relevant, are lame. I think that she has an all too human tendency to shade the truth in her favor, to color things in a way that I dislike, so that's why I think her reasons are not relevant -- they can't be totally trusted. So, again, timing not great but not broken up to see her go.

Second, in the middle of all this, I have received a job interview. It would be a cool job, but it is in a state far, far away. They are calling in eight people to be interviewed. If I get it, I cannot imagine turning it down. I also cannot quite imagine taking it. I am waiting to hear about other job possibilities, other interviews, other situations.

All I can really say with any certainty at this point in time, and I firmly believe certainty about life is a temporal thing, related completely to circumstances as they exist and as you hope they may exist in the near future, and even then Life has a way of making all of your little plans, all of your careful machinations, totally useless. Sorry. Where was I? Oh yeah, I have pretty much decided that I do not want to stay at the firm I am at, that I do not want to be a partner, that I don't really even want to continue practicing law in a private lawfirm. Although, I have mouths to feed and mortgage to pay, so I will do what I have to in order to meet my obligations. That said, I think that I will look at three options: in house; in government; or in a totally new and different field, a career change.

I expect to receive at least a couple more interviews and only one of them will be for a position in this area. In other words, the way things are at the moment, I may actually be in a position where I put my family back onto a moving truck just a short while after taking them off a moving truck. So, I face the thought of moving with no small reluctance.

And I have roots here. They get deeper all the time. I have civic involvements and friends, community ties and family, personal inclinations and historical connections. They get deeper, as I said. We had orientation last night for the kids' new pre-school and we walked away with a very good feeling. Especially for the Boy Child. He is going to love it and his teacher is the absolute best kind of kook. I love her already. She had no problem with the fact that a large portion of the Boy Child's vocabulary was in Norwegian and even asked us to write out, phonetically, several words and phrases so she could learn them. How cool is that? I already feel a strong aversion to taking him out of her class room and they haven't even started yet!

What happens to roots if you pull them up? I suppose they die. They certainly change and that can be indistinguishable from death. I'm not saying, exactly, that change is death and yet, I suppose, there are similarities. As things morph and become unrecognizable, isn’t that a kind of death?

But there is a feeling of adventure, a feeling like taking a job and running half way across the country would satisfy a need for adventure. The tension I alluded to elsewhere comes, maybe, from a feeling like I might be being pushed into the adventure instead of jumping into it. But, at the end of the day, does it matter much how you ended up in mid-air, jumped or pushed? You’re still in mid-air and you have to start concentrating on the landing as opposed to the take off, right?

So, landings. Maybe I should stop thinking about the take off, assume that I am already in play, already in mid-air, and start instead thinking about how to land. Well, that sounds good, a little bit overly simple, maybe, but still like there’s a lesson in there I can extract. I’m not sure what it is, mind you, but it is in there.

September and October look to be terribly busy. I’m certainly feeling the pressure from that. Black tie events at least three or four times in the next 30 days. Often enough that I have to think about buying another shirt to wear, just in case the cleaners can’t get my other one back fast enough. Engagements, meetings, interviews, appointments, up to my ears, and now perhaps having to find a new nanny. All of a sudden, it is as if the schedule turned around and swallowed me up.

I spent the weekend either by myself for some hours at a stretch or with my family. We hit the beach each day. It was a glorious weekend, weather wise. The ocean was terribly strong on Monday and the children and I spent time jumping in the waves. The Boy Child was especially enthusiastic after he first felt the power of the waves slapping him back to the beach. He was positively gleeful. We held hands and jumped up and down as each wave hit. They hit us hard enough that he would be pushed back, as if on a pivot attached to my hand, his whole body pushed back to the shore. He laughed, shaking the salt water from his face, spluttering, “more, Pappa, more�. Indefatigable. The Girl Child and I had already had our fill of playing farther out and eventually we opted to move from the Atlantic to the more pacific waters of the big kids’ pool.

Basically, I delight in the company of my children. I love them and I love being with them, teaching them, learning from them. I already hate that the Boy Child is headed off to school, even if it is only two days a week.

I think that my conflict is that on the one hand, I want to stay home and take care of them. I want to be the primary caregiver. On the other hand, I am fiercely competitive. A little burnt out on the practice of law at the moment, but still ready to heed the call of the bugle and charge back in if appropriately motivated. So, I want it all, both things at the same time. The total wonderfulness of raising my kids while still getting the fulfillment of being able to do complex litigation. The thing is, I can’t. No one can. It ain’t possible to practice litigation part time. It is a tension. Wanting what you can’t have.

I have no solutions. Nothing. All I do is sit here and plan and ponder and consider. And make my morning workouts progressively harder in an attempt to deal with the stress. 50 minutes cardiovascular this morning with an average heartbeat in the high 130's will certainly get your blood moving, won’t it? At best, it is a temporary cure.

Part of the weekend was spent with our first house guest. One of my uncles, who I love dearly. He was in from California to attend a meeting regarding my grandfather who is not getting better in this rehab facility. My uncle thinks the care given there has been negligent at best. He’s a practicing doctor so I give great weight to that opinion. I think that without his intervention at other stages, my grandfather would have died and the rehab facility would have lived up to its name by facilitating that process. The bastards. My uncle wants to get him out of there. It isn’t an easy proposition. I’ve offered to let him come live with me but my house isn’t really wheel chair appropriate and I don’t think they will take me up on it. Besides, he has a wife, my grandfather, and he ought to be living with her. Although I gather that there are serious strains in that marriage. A hell of a time for them to appear, no? We chatted about all of this well past our bedtime as my uncle and I drank the remainder of a 1985 St. Emillion which we had opened with dinner.

Again, people, life is too short to drink bad wine and if you hold on to it too long, waiting for an occasion, you will find that the wine, much like life, has moved past its prime while you were waiting for something excellent to happen.

I have no idea where this post was going or where it got to, but I think I feel a little better for writing it.

What you make of it, this post of 1600 words, I have no idea. But this one was for me, anyway, I suppose.

Posted by Random Penseur at September 8, 2005 01:07 PM | TrackBack