I suppose I should begin by introducing myself. It is hard to know where to begin. I guess I'll start by stating the obvious. First, I am a 30-something girl. (Although as I write, perhaps having crossed the big 3-0 makes me a woman? I don't feel like a woman yet. I still cringe every time a teenager calls me "ma'am," which was most recently at the Marine Corp Marathon when I asked a strapping young marine for directions. Although I am pleased at his effort at being polite, I'd still rather be a "miss.")
But I digress. I am a 30-something, married attorney with no children. I practice real estate and commercial lending law in a regional, mid-size firm. I work and commute for about 12-13 hours per day on average, which leaves little time for anything else because by the time I get home I am so exhausted I barely know my name. Actually, as far as working in a firm goes those hours are not bad. However, I never went to law school intending to practice forever, so really I'm just biding my time until I can figure out something better to do with my JD. Turns out, that's tougher than I thought because there's little time for anything else! It's a viscious cycle. Especially with student loans to repay...
My real name is not Honey Lebowitz, as you probably have guessed. I don't like honey and I am not even Jewish! The name comes from a rather distressing experience at the office - well, at a client function for the office - in which my boss called me "honey" in front of a client. That wasn't even the worst part. He said it in the context of telling me I'd have to go sit by myself at a basketball game because there were five of us and he only had tickets in sets of four. Naturally, in his mind, since I was the only girl and could have been the daughter of every one else in our party it only made sense that I be the "odd man out." Now, to give you a picture of how upsetting that was (and I won't even discuss how inappropriate it was to call me "honey") that was the first basketball game I had been to since high school when I was on the pom squad and had to perform at half time. To say that I am not a huge sports fan is putting it mildly. If I had had to actually sit by myself I truly don't know what I would have done. The arena was not even situated where I could have told my partner where to shove it and taken a taxi home. Thankfully, one of the others in our group had a little more social grace and was able to make the problem go away. I've never been to a sporting event with that partner again. Once I stopped fuming, my office friend and I got to laughing about it and decided we should turn the experience into something positive - lemonade, if you will - so the name is a way to pay hommage to that terrible - now funny - experience. And just to clarify - "Lebowitz" is not the partner's name - it was the name of a high school friend and I've always thought it sounded neat.
Now, to get back to introductions, I am either on the brink of great disaster or great adventure. See, we just found out we can't have children. Between the two of us - my wonderful husband and myself - it's genetically impossible. Thankfully, we are both otherwise perfectly healthy, so there are no other, related problems to deal with. I suppose "can't" is relative, because doctors now-a-days will tell you just about anything is possible. And it probably is. But just because something is a medical possibility doesn't mean it's a good idea. So we are trying to figure out our course of action while sorting through the roller coaster of emotions we are currently feeling. It sucks. Most days I'd rather just curl up in a ball and throw the covers over my head than get out of bed. That would be a disaster. But even if I get out of bed sometimes I'm just a walking disaster, so I can't figure out which is better.
As mentioned before, practicing law is not a forever-career for me, so having a baby was going to be a very safe and socially acceptable way to make a smooth exit and buy myself some time away from the daily grind to figure out what else to do. Now, that's not going to happen. So I have to come up with Plan B. I have no idea what that is. In law school the thing I enjoyed most was a seminar class comparing the lifestyle and culture of firms with government and public interest work. I interned for the government and we had to write journals each week regarding our experience. Turns out I enjoyed the writing more than I thought I would. Which was surprising because I've never, ever been a journaler. My parents got me a diary in elementary school and I wrote off and on through junior high but still only filled the book a third of the way up. It must have only occurred to me to write when I was upset about something, because when I found the diary while I was cleaning out my room for college all the entries were unhappy ones. I burned the diary and have had negative associations with journaling ever since. But the law school class awakened my interest in writing - creative writing, that is. A friend at work recently suggested I start writing again and then suggested I consider blogging. After perusing some of the other blogs (namely "My Messy, Thrilling Life") I decided to give it a try. We'll see how it goes. Hopefully this won't bore you to death and we can become friends. One can never overestimate the importance of a good friend...or a great adventure...
