Back when I first graduated from law school I worked for a DC law firm for a couple of years. It was not a positive experience. I had spent a summer working for the firm in another city and received an offer, and then I asked to come to DC to work. My request was granted. I wasn’t exactly enthusiastic about law firm life but I had a large student loan debt to pay off.
I wasn’t really receiving quality assignments at the firm, although I tried. I couldn’t really seem to make things gel for myself or find a niche. Almost a year into my experience, a more senior associate who I had become friends with told me that shortly after I had first arrived, the Managing Partner had said of me “If that new female associate doesn’t pick her head up off the carpet and say “Good morning” to me when I see her in the hallway, I’m going to fire her.” Apparently his negative vibe toward me had filtered through the partnership.
I had no idea I had made such a bad impression. I had operated under the assumption that important people should be left alone with their percolating thought bubbles, especially in the early mornings, and not interrupted by mundane morning-person good cheer. I had apparently really goofed with that philosophy. On top of that, bad eyesight and a lack of depth perception often leads me to look down when I am walking. I’m a stumbler. I was frozen with remorse over my terrible life choices.
I eventually left that firm and went to another firm that specialized in labor law, and I got some substantive experience, but I pretty quickly figured out I’m just not a law firm person, and I decided I could make my budget stretch in a federal government job. I’ve never been sorry I made that decision.
No matter how prepared you are, no matter how hard you try, you will never be able to control every variable. You can be dressed for success and ready and able to work hard and then some pompous ass gets mad that you haven’t greeted him properly. It’s impossible to consider all the dependent and independent variables all the time, much less to be able to factor for whether death is going to claim your family members.
I tried to control every aspect of Sarah’s life, to make sure she was always protected, safe, having fun, healthy, treated well and fairly, educated to the best extent possible, seeing friends, and receiving the best therapies out there. There was always more I felt I could be doing. Sometimes I think we may have even overmanaged her a little bit. When she was 13 or 14 and had become moodier and less inclined to want to do things in the community, Max and I decided that it would be wise to rule out depression and we visited the Neuropsychiatric Clinic at Kennedy-Krieger with Sarah. The psychologist thought Sarah was adjusting to Middle School and being an adolescent who had less interest in going places with her parents. I just didn’t want us to stumble and I didn’t want Sarah to fall on our watch. But I couldn’t control it all.
The First Year Without Sarah 