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I have been on a weird path recently.  I didn’t notice it until today, but as I drove home at an unusually early hour for the third day in a row after coming in somewhat tardy,  had to question whether I was subconciously telling myself something–I don’t know how long I can do this.

The past month of work has been ridiculously hectic.  Save the Anniversary Trip, if I didn’t live with The Mister and pass him in the halls of our home, I would not have seen him at all.  Mr. CVD and I haven’t seen each other more than once a week or even less in weeks before this week.  Yet during this time, while I felt useful and important, I didn’t necessarily feel fulfilled.  There were times when I did, but not on a constant basis in relation to all the things I was doing.

But now that things have calmed down dramatically for at least the time being, I’ve been thinking more.  If I wasn’t fulfilled by what I was doing when I was losing out on the rest of my life, what am I doing it for?

And I think that’s what my body has been telling me with the late arrivals and early departures.  Somethng in me is questioning my choices and ruining my ability to concentrate.  Instead I have these fantisiced notions of writing for a leaving (and not legal documents) and being able to write when I want, sleep when I want and live when I want.  I knew that a career in the legal field was not going to bring me those things, so why did I choose it, you ask.  I think the person that I was at the time either didn’t care what I wanted or wanted something different.

Therein lies the problem–if I’m constantly changing, constantly evolving, how do I establish myself in anythng?  Will I develop this same listlessness no matter what I do?  Will I be just as half-fulfilled in any line of work or mission in life?  And if I were truly fulfilled, would I even know it?

I have heard that anywhere from your first 3 to 10 years of practicing law are hellish.  I originally just thought that meant busy.  And yet I hear from nearly everyone I went to law school with, that the traditional legal path is either not what they expected or not what they want.  I find myself with these same concerns.  Are these things we learn to solve over time or are they things that we either learn to build an immunity against or do we just give up?  Or is there a choice that I don’t know?

Maybe I’ll wake up tomorrow in a motivated mood.  Maybe I’ll actually get up when my alarm goes off instead of setting it an hour forward or going to lay down on the couch.  Maybe I’ll eat a healthy breakfast and fully dry my hair.  Maybe I’ll go in early.  Maybe I’ll stay late.  Maybe I’ll make a to-do list and get everything on it done.

Or maybe, just maybe, I’ll just work my way through it, trying to find meaning, and finding nothing but empty promises. Promises that I made myself.  Promises that I believed that life made me.  Promises that I probably had no business believing in the first place.

I think the problem is that I started out my life too idealistically.  If my only goal were to make money, I guess I could just do that and survive.  But that’s never been my only goal.  Maybe that’s the problem.  I haven’t determined what those goals are yet.  And even though they may change,  I don’t think I’ve articulated a set of goals for myself in a very long time.

I love it when I find a solution to my own problem.  Or at least a pathway to a solution.  And that must be my mission, should I chose to accept it–determine what I want out of my career and my life and set up some milestones for myself.

Now back off…this message self-destructs.  I just hope that I don’t allow myself to do the same.

As noted in my Hank Moody post, we visited the Mac store recently.  TheMister won an award at work and decided he wanted a new computer–a Mac.

I think Macs are fine and cool even.  But I can’t see myself buying one.  Being married to one is going to be difficult.  When I recently purchased my new iPod and TheMister joked about getting a MacBook, I took the decals from my iPod and put one on my Toshiba laptop.

Now my laptop is failing.  The “i” key has stopped working reliably.  The power cord exploded at my feet today.  In other words, the Mac sticker cursed it.

I think TheMister should have to pay for my new computer. Him and Steve Jobs.

That just solidified my previously made decision to get a new PC LAPTOP.  Take that crazy Drew-Barrymore-dating-Mac guy.

First it was my ipod.  The damn thing just stopped working randomly.  I felt bad replacing it.  I mean, the thing has been with me through law school and beyond.  But it was failing fast and I couldn’t fit all of my music on it.

Then my car was hit.  I’m not replacing it, but I’m cheating on Squishy with a 2007 Chevy Malibu (and somewhat enjoying it).

Now it’s the computer.

I’m beginning to wonder if I’m addicted to new things.  In fact,  I had a whole post dedicated to it.  But I deleted it when I realized that it’s not me needing a fix of newness, but everything just falling to pieces around me.  Usually I get a high off of new things, but lately I’m findng myself just moving on after each fix.  This is the equivalent of an alcoholic losing his taste for booze.  I have no desire to go to Target or Best Buy or even Borders.  Maybe it’s partly because I haven’t had time.  Maybe it’s because I’m in a philisophical slump deciding if this lawyering thing is what I want for the rest of my life.  Either way, I’ve become numb to the newness.  Hell, I haven’t even really used the new iPod after having loaded it.

Maybe I’ll take up drinking.

Or maybe I’ll just buy a new computer because I have to.  Ugh.

It’s not so much the money thing because it’ll be covered by insurance, but it’s just the pain in the ass factor.  Who has time for getting estimates and insurance assesments and whatnot?  I can tell you who–someone who is sitting here at 10:13 at night purposefully writing an extra blog post instead of reading the second half of an arbitration transcript whose brief is due on Monday.  That’s who.

I’m waiting to get a break.  Instead, I continue to get broken.

The anniversary trip went off…well, better than expected but not without hitches.  For God’s sake, this is my life; if I did have an uneventful weekend I think I’d die of shock.  I can say that for 75% of the time we had an exceptional time.  15% of the remainding time we had a good time.  5% of the last remaining time was alright.  5% was bad…really bad.

I think it was an omen that the area of town where my family and I stayed when we were there thirteen years ago was completely razed and built again, save a few minor things.  It was like that part of the city made a fresh start, so maybe I could too.  For the first time in a long time, when we were on the Maid of the Mist, I closed my eyes and just let the wind and water fly in my face and absorb into my skin and my mind.  It was one of those few moments where you realize that things will be okay.  Or at least you fool yourself into thinking that things will be okay.  And really, isn’t that just as good?

The night of our actual anniversary was interesting.  We had reservations at one place, but we soon realized that while the view might be good, the food was likely to suck.  So we hopped in the car and drove somewhere else to have a great dinner and a great bottle of wine.  I should have known the wine would be too much for the both of us.

After dinner we arrived at an outdoor bar where there was karaoke.  For anyone who knows me, they know that karaoke is one of my favorite things in the whole world.  The next best thing to being a rock star, is being buzzed and pretending to be one.  Whether it was the many drinks I had (seriously, don’t ask), or whether I was just on that night, I was a total hit.  I was even getting requests from the 19 year old drunk kids from across the border in the U.S.  (For the record, the selection was not great and I did “Like a Virgin,” “Natural Woman,” “Proud Mary,” and “Golddigger.”  Yes, I can sing and rap…) In fact, that’s me performing my much loved rendition of “Like a Virgin” above.  I had to represent the D (Madge and Aretha) and full figured women (Aretha).

I was on top of the world and on a buzz.  At first I thought it was a joke, but these people genuinely liked me.  After a week of being beaten down by life and work, I needed that release–standing on a stage, belting out some of my favorite tunes, and just being embraced.  Hell, even TheMister started dancing a little towards the end.  That’s a total rarity.

But then reality set in.  The Mister was, in fact, wasted.  For him, wine before Canadian beer is a deadly combination.  We walked back to the hotel, me trying to get him to stand up straight and he, trying to kill my well-deserved buzz.  He kept asking me to take him to the hospital.  I refused…he was drunk, not sick.  He continued these loud requests until we were in the room and even for a period of time thereafter, where upon I had my most rockstar moment of the night–while The Mister was passed out on the floor and things were strewn about, the hotel management knocked on the door telling us that next time it would be the police.  The Mister eventually regurgitated his expensive dinner and I finally was able to go to bed.  In the morning we were both hung over and The Mister remembered nothing of the requests for the hospital or the hotel management.  At least he cleaned up his mess in the bathroom on his own.

Meanwhile, back in the mitten, Mom and Dad were watching Rocky the Dog on his first overnight stay without us.  Dropping him off before we left was hard.  I told The Mister I didn’t know if we were going to be able to have kids because leaving the dog at my parents was hard enough.  Poor Rocky was surrounded by Amy the Hound–a puppy of about six months or so.  Amy has more energy than a nuclear powerplant and you can’t see her when she’s moving, let alone catch her.  Rocky is an easy going, older gentleman.  I was worried that he wouldn’t be able to handle her.

Before we left though, it became abundantly clear–Rocky might not have been young or fast, but he was top dog.  Amy had already rolled over once to show her submission and Rocky barked at her in response.  According to Mom and Dad, the dominance continued, amidst Amy’s constant pestering, all weekend.  Rocky stood his ground and when Amy got too tough, he taught her that experience has a little bit on age.

When we picked Rocky up on Monday, we drove home in near silence.  The dog was asleep and The Mister and I were hung over (and in my case majorly PMSing in addition).  When we got home, Rocky picked a spot and laid there not moving for probably 12 hours.

I guess it turns out that every dog has his day.  Rocky was top dog over Amy and I was top dog at kareoke.  But in the end, being on top only lasts for so long.  Sometimes you need someone to knock on the door and remind you that you’re a bit out of control to take a break and rest awhile.

I’m still waiting for my rest.  Rocky, on the other hand, is ready for another battle of wits and stamina.  And maybe a few more of Grandma’s many rawhide treats.

In honor of The Mister and mine’s first anniversary (Sunday), I have a special SOML dedication. The song is “To Make You Feel My Love,” originally written and performed by Bob Dylan and redone by everyone from Garth Brooks to Adele (the version I’m listening to right now).

It’s a song that has been the song of my life for a long time for various reasons.  The last couple of years of high school I was totally infatuated with a certain boy.  It was an unrequited love that gave me hope and pain…joy and sorrow and ultimately, well, nothing.  That’s the thing about unrequited love–it’s unrequited. But I remember hearing the words to the song and thinking that it encapsulated all of the things I wanted to say to this boy.  Every time I heard the part that goes “I know you haven’t made your mind up yet, but I will never do you wrong,” my heart would fill with a feeling akin to a warm latte on a cold winter’s day.

Years later when I met TheMister, I started hearing the song differently.  The one thing that I’ve learned in the five years since I met TheMister is that love isn’t easy.  Love is beautiful.  Love is all consuming.  Love is amazing.  But the one thing love ain’t is easy.  You learn that love means putting up with things that you would not otherwise.  You come to find out that the flaws are the most beautiful thing in a person.  Years later you look back on the times when you were there for that person and when that person was there for you in the worst times, together.  Love means patience, tolerance and laughter.

A different part of the song sings to my heart these days.  “I could you make you happy, make your dreams come true.  Nothing that I wouldn’t do.  Go to the ends of the earth for you.  To make you feel my love.”  That’s what love is-a neverending, always-changing barage of going the distance.

Well, we just made it a bit further along the road.

For the past six to eight weeks I have dreaded every Monday.  It’s not so much that I hate my job, I just know that the week is going to take a level of energy that I can’t sustain much longer.  In all honesty, I was waiting for my first year as an associate to be like this, but apparently it’s the second that kills you.  Each Monday morning I walk in to work, sometimes after being there over the weekend, and watch as the new week unfolds, amazed that we could all return to the scene of the crime as if nothing happened and everything is hunky-dory.

This scene-of-the-crime motif seems to be haunting me lately.  I don’t know if it’s a cosmic hint to get things right the first time, or a way in which to get me to come to terms with some sort of past harm or wrong, but I’ve been revisiting places that I used to frequent or at least visited along the way.  For example, last week I found myself in the city where I lived during my first year of law school and, coincidentally, the first year I was dating The Mister.  It’s weird how random stops in suburbia will make you recall memories outstanding.  But they do.  I was forced to put old songs on my iPod and travel through these areas, memories of a time I thought was so difficult, but was sadly much simpler.

The most glaring example of this, however, is yet to come.  This weekend, The Mister and I are traveling to Niagara Falls for our first anniversary.  I was not a fan of this destination.  I have had strong negative feelings for Niagara Falls since I was 13.  In a one year span, I visited Niagara Falls twice.  Once was on the Eighth Grade Class Trip where, I consumed alcohol for the first time and passed out standing up in a souvenir shop in Niagara, almost missing the bus back home.  More importantly though, I remembered that trip because it stood out as a time where I felt out of place.  I burnt my tongue on Tim Hortons coffee (which I always find to be too hot) and it just started the trip off on a bad note.  Before you know it, people were fighting and I was breaking into the mini bar with two popular girls who, the next day, would soon forget my existence in their fun the night before.

Then, not even a year after this, Mom and Dad decide to make a good ol’ family trip to Niagara Falls.  Why they chose that for that year, I’ll never know.  It’s something only my parents would do.  Nevertheless, there we were in Niagara when I was in the midst of puberty and on the edge of a deep depression–for which I was being improperly medicated.  Let’s just say that I was miserable at the best times.  In fact, when I told Mom about our selected destination she was quick to bring up what a miserable trip that was. And she did not mince words when telling me that it was the fault of my “attitude” that made it so miserable.  That is, of course, in addition to the really crappy motel we stayed in.

So for the past few days, when The Mister would try to peg down details about our trip–when are we leaving, where are we staying, etc–I was noticeably cold.  I refused to stay anywhere cheap, without telling him the underlying reason for my refusal.  This caused a great fuss in The House which was only remedied by me caving to a less than four-star hotel.

Now I sit here, in the midst of another game-changing time in my life, wondering if Niagara is truly cursed for me.  I tried my damnedest to go somewhere else.  In fact, I just wanted to relax somewhere other than here.  But, The Mister, knowing none of my woes in Niagara, pushed the trip because he’s never been.  I tried to tell him it’s a really beautiful natural wonder surrounded by the worst crap imaginable.  That didn’t detour him.  I decided not to bring up the bad memories because it’s just easier that way, I guess.

I wonder whether I’ll play the self-destructing devil in my own play of follies, making this weekend miserable because I can or whether I’ll try and remedy the woes I’ve experienced at the Falls.  I’d like to say that I’ll focus on the latter, but I know myself all too well to see that as anything more than a definite maybe.

Part of being married, I’ve come to find, is learning to make yourself whole in the places you were not able to on your own.  We all have our rivets in our lives which we, by ourselves, are unable to repair.  But maybe, with the help of another person in the right place at the right time, we can work on those.  The hope for this wholeness is what keeps me optimistic about marriage.  The knowledge of the faults we have yet to work on is what keeps me realistic.

But I know if I can do it with anyone, I can do it with The Mister.

And if not, I’ll just find a barrel and make the trip really memorable.

You’d think after the great Thigh and Leg Debacle of Tuesday night, I’d have had enough KFC to hold me over for at least a few months.  At least a week or so.  But the instant I had a few free moments around lunchtime yesterday before going to a retiree’s house for work, I stop at a KFC.  Having had that experience on Tuesday, I decide to go in as the drive thru is just too confusing.

I get my meal fine and other than the fact that they’re stingy on the extra napkins and I accidentally spilled pop on mine, I’m doing alright.  I kind of scarf down the meal as I have time–but not that much.

Due to the napkin situation, I had to use the bathroom to wash my hands before I left.  I got them clean enough to walk to the bathroom, but not clean enough to go to someone’s house.  So I go into the one-person restroom and wash my hands.  Of course, they didn’t have paper towel and only one of those crappy hand dryers, but that’s another story.

I turn around to leave and the next thing I know I’m on the floor, face down, in the KFC bathroom.  On the way down I remember hearing a “CLANG” and I notice I’ve also run into a metal trash can.

In a mass of furry I pick myself up and look back to where I thought I last stepped.  No water.  No misplaced tile.  No piece of toilet paper or anything to slip on.  Just me and the floor.  There was a slight slope of the floor leading to the floor drain, but nothing to cause such a fall.

Now, I’ve fallen a lot in my day.  I’m a bull in a china shop for sure.  But this was definitely the most violent fall I have ever had.  It felt as if someone lifted my legs right out from underneath me and pushed me forward.  And because there was a wall right there, I’m pretty sure I hit my head on it as well.

Even though I’m an attorney, and I know better, I leave without saying a thing.  For some reason I’m shamed that someone might have heard my fall (and to be honest, with the trash can I’m not sure they could have missed it) and I just don’t want to deal with it.  Plus I had to get to the retiree’s house.  On the way over, I take a few alleve, already feeling the throbbing pain in my head and neck.

The rest of the afternoon was fairly blurry.  The sad part is that I was driving and I probably shouldn’t have been.  I don’t know if I really did do something when I hit my head or the alleve did it (though it’s never done it before), but I was woozy.  I made sure to go to the chiropractor and ice my back last night to prevent a total disaster today.

I am sore as hell though.  Weird places of me are weak and imobile.  That feeling in your abs you get the day after doing a lot of crunches–that’s what my whole body feels like.  Plus I have some throbbing in my head still.

I have only one explanation for all of this:  the Ghost of the Colonel read my post the other day and decided to pay me back.

Well, guess what Colonel?  You’ll have to try a little harder to Kill this Fat Chick.