Giving Thanks

Despite all my complaining, I am grateful for my life as it is, right now. I finally feel like I am concretely building on a career, and the goal of becoming a lawyer, though still a half year + away, is at least in sight. I am grateful that after so many interviews, and my adamant insistence all through law school to have nothing to do with criminal law, I ended up with an article that's pretty great, and well suited to me. There will be frustrations from judges, lawyers, partners and peers to come, and hire-back and what's next to worry about in the new year, but for today, I can be content, and give thanks for what I have. I'm still here.

Oscillation

I am oscillating between homesickness, dismay at the lack of learning at my job, no idea why I am sad, stress about what's next after articling, even though there is 8 more month to go of that, and it's getting cold. What is wrong with me? Next week is Thanksgiving, and there'll be a potluck at church. I don't even care about Thanksgiving; my family doesn't really celebrate it, so why do I feel like I'm falling apart, a little?

This is the longest time I have ever been away from home, though I really thought that doesn't bother me anymore. What is happening?

England, I miss you!

I left for England this time last year, with some vague notions of finding myself, enjoying a semester aboard, and an odd sense of sentimentality, as Leicester is one of the places my dad studied at while in graduate school. What's missing in a father-daughter relationship in the present I had hoped to find in a shared experience, of a place, though 30 days apart. I don't know what I found in my 3 months aboard, except that the cobbley steps of the Royal Mile of Edinburgh, the dreaming spires of Oxford, the glistening lights of Paris, and the sheer energy in the dance of Madrid will forever be etched in my soul. I cannot wait for a chance to go back. But I know that to return as a visitor will never match the childlike wonder of seeing it for the first time. And I will no longer be a student, which has implications of its own.

I traveled to the other side of the world to find myself, but still the greater distance is between who I am, and who I long to be. Feeling quite wistful today; don't know why.