getting over it.

It's been a tough few weeks.  Work has been hard.  It's difficult to adjust to a new workplace, with all the different personalities and practice styles and all the other things that go into office dynamics.  I had a few days where I was trying really hard not to cry at work, and one day where I had to hide in my office, listening to my iPod, and then just left early.  Nevertheless, I've tried really hard to stay positive and stay focused this week, trying not to worry about all of the gaffes and stumbles I make in a day's work, trying to remember that I'm here because I want to be here, and that I'm not going to know everything at once.  Like one of my favorite attorneys told me, "We've been here for 20 years, and it's insulting to think that you can learn everything I know in just a few weeks.  Accept that this is the first time in your life when you are not in control and you don't know everything."

 

Last night, I went to dinner with friends, and afterwords I stepped into a bookstore to look around.  I went to the bathroom, which is off the children's section, and while I was in there, a male and female entered the handicapped stall next to me and loudly and openly were using and exchanging drugs - either cocaine or heroin.  It was a really disturbing situation.  Then I got home, all depressed, and found that someone had broken into my apartment building, and had vigorously attempted to break into my apartment.  The doorframe is beat up pretty badly, although for some reason, they didn't actually make it into my apartment.  The locks on the door to the building were completely ripped off the door with a crowbar. 

 

And then of course, the landlord called the cops, who show up, and I have to listen to them talk about how there are a bunch of kids in the neighborhood, they're all punks, all rabble rousers, and I think back to the fact that just yesterday I was trying to take on all of the teen cases, because I adore them, I think they're angels, I love working with them.  It's hard to be in that position, yet again, where as much as I love my job, I also wouldn't mind kicking my attempted burglar in the shins repeatedly.  My car got vandalized, there's open drug use and dealing going on in a large bookstore bathroom in the children's section, and my little apartment in my little neighborhood is all torn up. 

 

I tried to remember what it was like to live in not such a big city.  Like when we discovered that our front door had been left wide open all night and our only fear was that a skunk or raccoon may have made its way into the house.  Or to have all your friends within walking distance, and to have a house and a yard big enough to have people over, and it didn't take so much effort to get everyone in one place.  Or what it was like to look up and see a sky full of stars, and the night was always quiet. 

 

I'm feeling really drained, and really lonely.  It's one thing to struggle to get accustomed to a job, but it's another thing when your support system is fractured too.  As per usual, the only thing that makes me feel better is to have one eye on the door - to have a Plan B, an escape route.  I don't like the fact that the only thing appeasing me right now is the idea of escape.  I'm going to keep trying to work through it all, keep trying to tell myself that it's just kind of tough right now, but that there are wonderful and amazing things on the other side.  For the first time in a while, I'm really not sure if that's true or not.  Maybe this is adulthood.  Maybe this is just how it is.