password changes

It's funny how some completely annoying and/or menial tasks seem not so annoying when you put things in perspective. Yes, I'm sure you can say that about a lot of things in life, but today I was thinking about password changes.

As I was getting off the metro and making my now weekly stop at Whole Foods on the way to work to pick up some healthy foods for snacks and lunch at work, I looked at my watch and sighed that yet another hour and a half of my life had been spent on a work commute. I try not to get frustrated at the utter waste of 3 hours I endure each day because I truly am grateful to be going someplace where I love working.

Last year at this time, I was on the way to becoming extremely pessimistic about my chances at every getting back to this job or to another job where I felt challenged and occasioanlly valued. I hated coming into work and my attitude showed. When I started that job last year, I promised myself that I'd be out before I had to change my password. Well, when May came around and I was being prompted to change my Windows password, I kept delaying it because I was hoping that a miracle would occur. Eventually I changed it because I had no choice, but make no mistake, I did so under duress. (obviously I'm prone to exaggeration). Anyway, when I had to change my password again in August, I was again really frustrated, but I kept trying to tell myself that eventually my situation would change. It changed shortly thereafter because by September, I was out of that hellhole and back to my great old job that I was foolish to leave.

Now, when I get prompted to change my password every 3 months for 3 different password required systems, I stifle the urge to sigh or roll my eyes. While it might be a minor inconvenience to think of easy to remember passwords that have a capital letter, a number and a symbol every 3 months, I'd much rather do it at this job than anywhere else. And while there days I'd really like to spend less than 3 hours on the metro or 1.5 hours driving, I will be continue to be grateful to going to a job that I enjoy. Plus, at least my commute gives me time to read a book everyday!

Reason 8,384,692 I love my mother

Saturday was my Sammy baby's first birthday. Before having Sammy come into our lives, Pork Chop and I used to laugh at obsessed dog owners. That all changed one Sunday in early August 2008. I was at work when Pork Chop called me to tell me he found the perfect puppy for us. I was skeptical because I'm terrified of dogs and because I didn't think Pork Chop was up to the responsibility of caring for a little beings. A few hours later, I was sitting on the floor and going through the paperwork required to buy a dog when Pork Chop brought Samson over to me. Poor little guy was suffering from kennel cough and was really exhausted from all the manhandling he'd gone through that day. At 11 weeks old, he still needed a lot of rest. Pork Chop put him on the floor and Sammy came over to me, looked up at me and (I swear), sighed and put his head on my thigh where he proceeded to fall asleep promptly. I took one look at that adorable face, felt his tiny little body quiver in his sleep and fell in love. In that instant, I felt like the Grinch when his heart grows too big. I knew I'd be taking Samson (soon to be known as Sammy baby to me) home and that I'd be wrapped around his little finger.

I run home everyday with excitement to spend time with Sammy. I can't go to the store without thinking about what toys or treats to buy him. He's my favorite companion on a Friday night when Pork Chop is out with friends. I'll stop at McDonald's for chicken nuggets and French fries for Sammy to eat contentedly while we lay in bed together. He'll gnaw on a treat while I read. We're perfect buddies together and during moments like that, I can't imagine a better way to spend my alone time.

My parents took to Sammy immediately. He's adorable and he's got a lot of admirers, but my mom loves him almost as much as I do. When we visit my parents, I leave him with my parents to babysit (not dog sit, because they really do baby him) while I hang out with friends or run errands in NJ. My dad takes him for walks while my mom prepares Sammy's favorite meals and scrounges around for new toys for Sammy. My mom's doting on Sammy makes me love her more. Not only because she accepts him and treats him how I want him to be treated (ok, fine, spoiled), but because she loves him on her own too.

However, my mom totally caught me off guard on Saturday with the absolutely cutest thing. I told her that it was Sammy's birthday. She then immediately scolded me for not telling her earlier so she could buy him a birthday present...and then she asked me to put her on speaker phone so she wish him a happy birthday. I put her on speaker and watched Sammy's ears perk as my mom cooed, "happy birthday Sammy! You're a big boy today!".

There are no words for how much I loved my mom at that moment.

Reason 8,384,691 I love my mother

This isn't a Mother's day post (which is good because it would be way late). This is more of an acknowledgment of the little things my mom does and says that surprise me because I don't expect her to understand me so well...nor do I think I understand her either.

A few weeks ago, my family had a huge argument. Many hurtful things were said to each other, while I mainly stood apart and tried to mediate. I've always somewhat felt like an outsider in the exclusive club that is my family. That day was no different. Although I had no part in the fighting, I was blamed by all the participants for simultaneously not taking sides, taking the wrong side, not understanding, trying to understand things that were beyond my comprehension, etc.

Anyway, my mom indulged in the usual dramatics wherein she moaned about all the sacrifices she made as a mother, related the horrors of her c-sections to bring my brother and I to the world, etc. Basically, she just read from the universal mothers' handbook that every mother seems to have memorized. Anyway, I've heard the guilt trip before and tuned it out. However, then my mom veered from the script. She cried about how she still remembers being pregnant with Brown Clown. She told me about her fear and excitement as her belly grew, her sleepless nights when she would stand over his crib and marvel at his tiny appendages and worry about how such a vulnerable body would make it in this cruel world.

Maybe you've heard such reminiscing from your parents; maybe I have too and I just never listened. This time those words pierced my veneer though. She explained that the love and worry I feel for my Sammy baby is just an inkling of the terrifying, all-encompassing love that only a mother can feel for her child. I already know this, but now that I'm at the age when having a child is commonplace, that sentiment seems more real.

My love for my dog is so huge that I feel like my heart breaks on a daily basis just to accomodate the new love that develops daily. One of my fears about starting a family is that I don't think my heart can handle it. Love is heartache; for the first time, I truly understand that. I already imagine the physical, professional, academic, and social sacrifices a woman makes when she becomes a mother. I just never appreciated the emotional sacrifice. As a mother, your feelings and thoughts are never your own again. You are held hostage from day one of realizing that you're carrying a baby (or that your adoption is going through). You spend your life worrying, hoping, loving...all for a child who will never appreciate a tenth of your dedication and commitment. You trust that God will protect your baby and guide him when you cannot. You place your faith in the idea that your love will compensate for your parenting mistakes.

I don't know if I can do any of that. I'm sure no mother feels ready to do that, but I'm paralyzed by the mere suggestion of motherhood. I've been grappling with this fear constantly lately because, again, I'm at that age when everyone seems to be starting families. I can't imagine "my turn" anymore than I can imagine having a sex change operation and becoming a man.

I haven't told my mom about these fears because I didn't think she'd understand. It's expected in my culture that when you're "of age," you get married and start expelling babies from your body. As a result, I just assumed that my mother didn't understand the uncertainty and overwhelming fear I have regarding parenthood. However, when she started talking about watching Brown Clown grow everyday and being astonished at the way his perfect little body grew bigger and stronger to the point that he was crawling, walking and then running to my mother...and then away from my mother...I finally realized what I hadn't understood before. Motherhood isn't an obligation. It's a lifelong duty, but it's also a privilege. It's heartbreak, but it's also heart-filling.

I don't know how my mother knew to put her unhappiness with her child's actions into terms I'd understand, but she did. She targeted my fears but also put them in context of the great rewards of motherhood.

I'm so happy because today I found my friends

...they're in my head.

Over the past few years, I have been going through some uncomfortable growing pains. When I first moved here, I did not concentrate on making new friends. I was perfectly polite (at least I think I was) to people, but I always withdrew from any type of intimacy or deep friendships with people here. This was in part because I had a few wonderful friends back in NJ and NY and I didn't see the need to start anew. However, if I'm going to be honest with myself, my behavior was largely in part because I am afraid of forming friendships with people. I counted myself very fortunate to have a very small number of good friends back home, but I also found them to be somewhat of an anomaly in my life. I didn't know how I got so lucky to make those friends or why they continued to be in my life, but I also didn't know how to make new friends here that would hold similar value as my dear friends back in NJ and NY. As a result, I contented myself with being slightly remote and emotionally inaccessible.

I've never had a great track record with friends. For that reason, I've always avoided any groups of girls because inevitably they morph into "mean girls." That's obviously oversimplifying the facts, but generally speaking, I find it really difficult to be friends with a group of girls because I simply do not understand the girl dynamic.

Anyway, so I amused myself for a few years by having a few vague acquaintances. I told myself this was all fine and dandy, but the strain of having few people to call friends here has worn on me over the past few years. Simultaneously (or perhaps this caused the strain), I realized that certain acquaintances who I had a fondness for were largely consumed by their feelings of enmity towards me. It's a really sobering feeling to realize that you aren't well-liked. I've gone through a great deal of self-analysis over the past few years as a result of these epiphanies and while I realize where I'd gone wrong with my behavior, I also realized that I had to be much more selective in terms of who I deemed "worth" my time and energy. Just because someone is in my peer group doesn't mean I have to be bff with her, right? Right.

Anyway, so last year, my resolution was to become more social, make myself more vulnerable (and thus more exposed and open to friends with quality people) and reach out to people whose company I enjoyed. A year later, I can't exactly say that I've got a zillion friends, but that was never my intention. However, I have made a very small number of new friends through work and some outside interests of mine. I've even intitiated going out for coffee/drinks, shopping or invited those friends over to our home. It's been slow progress, but I feel like I'm finally coming out of my shell. I feel more blessed for the people I've let into my life and I've learned a lot from these great people.

I'm going to continue to work on my relationships with people. If you're reading this, don't let me fall behind on my self-improvement goals. Also, if you're reading this, thanks for giving me a chance. Those of you who I've befriended in person and spent time with laughing and chit-chatting away are high on my list of reasons why 2008 was a great year for me. I hope I can continue to deepen those friendships in the coming year.

a new day is dawning

It's my last day at the job I've loathed for the better part of a year. I've woken up each day in 2008 having to talk myself into getting out of bed to go to this job. Without meaning to, I let this job suck the life and passion out of me. I was overly negative, pessimistic, joyless and bitchy. I complained and whined and was an altogether unpleasant person. When I've come across intolerable people, instead of reacting with the manners my parents raised me, I found a fleeting satisfaction in being impolite and dismissive.

I'm not proud of the person I was here.

Fortunately, today is my last day here. I'm finding myself somewhat sad about leaving. I've met some interesting people, had many fun conversations, laughed at inane things and altogether found myself passing time faster than I realized. It's nearly October and 2008 is almost over. All things considered, this place wasn't so awful. Sure, the work environment was uninspiring and the tasks were laughable. However, in the end, it was a job. A job that paid. A job that enabled me to secure a mortgage with my husband, pay down my car loans, student loans and credit card debt and while away many a day by chit-chatting with friends and catching up on blogs. Now that I've put it in context, I guess it wasn't so terrible.

I can say that now that I have perspective. I'm going back to the job I took straight out of law school. I'm excited to return to the field in which I thrived. I'm looking forward to the work, the people, the cases, and even the bureaucratic nuisances involved. However, I'm most excited about the prospect of feeling that my legal education, enormous debt that I incurred and years spent pursuing intellectual property were worth it. I will finally feel validated. I will finally feel like a real attorney.

I hope that along with this newfound confidence and optimism, I find the "happy" part of the old me. I've missed her and I think everyone who knew the old me would much rather welcome the 2007 happy roy than deal with this unpleasant 2008 version.

a good litigator does not make for a great spouse

[Let's pretend that I haven't been absent from the blogging world for the past 14 months. At some point, I hope to address the months of inactivity and how my life has changed during that period. However, during my absence, every time I thought about returning to blogging, I became discouraged by the idea of having to backtrack. So...let's just pick up with the present.]

Married life has been really interesting. Pork Chop and I have grown a great deal both as individuals and as a couple over the past 14 months of marriage. I now understand what older married couples mean when they state that they continually learn about themselves and their spouses during each day of marriage. I used to find that concept hard to believe because I have a tendency to take things so literally. However, lately, I've come to understand more about myself and how I fit into the dynamics of interpersonal relationships.

MMEJD and I had an interesting discussion a few weeks ago about our argument styles. Being a natural born litigator, she has a tendency to fight like a "lawyer." I thought this was interesting, but didn't think about her revelation beyond that discussion. This past weekend, Pork Chop and I had a minor disagreement about something. In his frustration with me, he accused me of always "fighting like a lawyer." Since I had recently heard MME tell me that about herself, I was curious. Pork Chop's main complaint is that I'm emotionally removed from arguments and that I'm not so concerned about being "right" as I am about winning the argument. And to that extent, I use my rationalization and analytical skills essentially to "debate" with him. Pork Chop has many great talents and abilities, but I am definitely the better debater. So lately, I've been winning more arguments...but to what purpose? I'm definitely not right most of the time. I just happen to articulate my point and substantiate my claims better.

Your choice of profession does not necessarily dictate your interpersonal relationship style. I know plenty of successful therapists and social workers who cannot maintain functional and healthy personal relationships. I also don't think that all lawyers argue the same way. Transactional attorneys definitely approach problem solving a different way by envisioning and sidestepping future problems. Mediators and arbitrators practice their conciliatory skills. The various professions in the law require diverse skill sets. Those skills apparently often permeate an individual's personality. I obviously chose the area of litigation because of my personality strengths. I just never thought of myself as a typical litigator. I'm non-confrontational by nature and I always thought I didn't like the current state of the adversarial system in American litigation. Apparently, I have been fooling myself. I'm more of a litigator in my personal life than I realized.

To this extent, I have come to realize that I need to adjust my argument approach. I don't need to win every argument. There is no judge or jury to issue a verdict. No one will be wowed by my charismatic and convincing closing arguments. I have to view people as people, not opposing counsel. I need to find an emotional connection to people and work on developing my empathy for others. By doing so, hopefully I can be a better friend, daughter, sister, and most importantly, spouse.

doubts

i'm not strong enough for this.

the safety in being average

As far back as my memory will take me, one flaw of mine has always been clear to me. I’m a coward. You’ve probably met those who are afraid of failure, afraid of disappointment, of reaching for something out of their grasps. That’s me in part. But there’s another fear so deeply entrenched in me that I am convinced it is congenital. It’s the fear of promise, of success, of great expectations. I don’t thrive in adversity nor am I compelled to succeed when surrounded by greatness. I am, and always have been, most comfortable in mediocrity, in the safe anonymity afforded by being average. A few examples:

1. At the tender of 6, I was constantly reprimanded for disrupting class, acting out as a class clown, and being uncontrollable. I felt safe in my reputation as the outcast who people suspected might also be a little slow. Some eagle-eyed teacher saw through my disruptive behavior and believed she saw a brilliant child. The school administrators wanted to push me ahead a grade, as well as transfer me to another school. Already the youngest, shortest, skinniest and shiest person in my first grade class, I begged my parents to allow me to remain where I was comfortable and I promised that I’d attend any enrichment programs the school recommended. My parents must have sensed that my temper tantrums would never desist if they ignored my pleas, so they allowed me to remain in first grade.
2. I supposedly thrived in these talented and gifted classes, but I learned quickly that it was easiest to be mediocre among a group of brilliant individuals. I did whatever minimal was required to remain in the advanced classes, but I never pushed myself to excel because any acknowledgement of my supposed intelligence made me break out in hives.
3. In high school, a guidance counselor recognized my fears and thought that if I was clued into my “potential”, I might find the courage to push myself. She accidentally on purpose let me find out my IQ. She thought I’d be impressed that a standardized test found me to be near genius and that I’d find the motivation to succeed. She was wrong. That number made me apply the brakes on my academic career. I didn’t want to be brilliant. I wanted to be left alone. She then accidentally on purpose left out the class rankings during one of our motivational sessions. I was #5 in a class of 612. A mere three hundredths of a point separated me from the top. In the #1 place was a dear friend of mine who had put herself in the hospital with anorexia because she pushed herself so hard to succeed. #’s 2-4 were also dear friends of mine who similarly worked diligently and tirelessly to secure top spots. I rarely did my homework so it didn’t make sense, nor did it seem fair, that I would be so close to #1. During the last 2 years of high school, I goofed off even more, and tested my teachers’ patience, to see how far they’d allow me to go before flunking me out altogether. I went from #5 to #21 (not the fall from grace I was aiming for) and yet I barely graduated in the spring with the rest of my class because I missed so much school my senior year.
4. I was always expected to attend an Ivy League, graduate summa cum laude, go to a top medical school, and then get into the best residency so that I could become a world renowned pediatric neurosurgeon. I choose the easy way by taking a scholarship from NYU, changing my major every semester and graduating in 4 years instead of in the 2.5 years I could have graduated.

There are countless examples of how I was so inordinately blessed with the potential to be smart, to develop my gifts and make everyone proud. Unfortunately, there are an equal number of examples where I took the coward’s way out by settling for mediocrity. I’m not sure why it is that the idea I could be “something” scares me. I thought I’d outgrow it in law school, but after attending a second tier law school, I found no motivation to be a big fish in a small sea. And now, with the bar exam a mere 30 hours away, I find myself afraid again.

I’m dreading it, truth be told. Aside from the obvious stress and anxiety of the 2 day ordeal, I’m dreading taking it and knowing that I’m sorely unprepared. I didn’t study enough, but I can’t blame it on wedding planning, lengthy hours at work, my father’s accident or any other stresses, distractions or problems. I’m just unmotivated, lazy and afraid. Afraid to pass and afraid to fail. The bar exam is probably my biggest trial to date. Throughout my life, I’ve contented myself with coasting along. The bar exam doesn’t allow for coasting. If you pass, you succeed, if you don’t pass, you fail. For someone who’s deathly results, this is a debilitating problem.

Obviously, I want to pass because then I don’t have to go through the ordeal of studying and waiting again and I can proceed with my future with Pork Chop. However, I’m plagued with the regrets of a lifetime that will surface if I pass. If I can pass despite my minimal studying, why didn’t I push myself harder throughout my life? What if I find that success wouldn’t be as scary as I always imagined it would be.

If I don’t pass, I will feed into my doubts and insecurity and remind myself that there was a reason I always contented myself with mediocrity, because that’s all I’d ever amount to, despite everyone’s confidence and expectations to the contrary.

It’s a no win situation, although I’m sad to say I already know what to expect. Three months from now, I’ll probably be telling myself, “I told you so.”