Happy Holidays

Well, the time is upon us. Christmas hasn't been what it used to be, as most holidays haven't been. It's an odd time, seeing how I like getting gifts, but the holiday season isn't filled with the same excitement and anticipation as it used to be. For Christmas, if I were to get nothing, I wouldn't be very upset. The only thing that I minded about missing Thanksgiving was the opportunity to see my family and have good Turkey and fixins. The fact it was Thanksgiving didn't register as an upsetting factor. Had I seen the family, I would have enjoyed that more than getting the time off, but as it was, I was happy for the time off and upset about nothing. Am I jaded? Am I suppressing thoughts and feelings of past events? Is there a problem with enjoying Christmas and Thanksgiving as much as Labor and Memorial Day? It didn't used to be like that. I'm not quite sure when it happened either. Maybe my ex-wife sucked the fun out of everything with her shenanigans, as well as putting me behind on all my career goals, and the fact I've been playing catch up since I was 18 has taken its toll on me. (Granted, it wasn't all her, I did say I do, but this past year has been the first time I felt I was actually getting somewhere.) Maybe it was before then when Dad passed away. Maybe it was a combination of a bunch of things. But, making excuses isn't something I do.

I have a degree. I'm in school for more. I make more than the average salary. I have the ability to take care of myself, and my friends and family. I've got a family that cares. I've got friends that care. But I feel I'm just...blah...towards everything. Is 25 too young for a _____-life crisis?

Do I work too much?

Of course, I work all week. Then my weekends, unless I'm actually doing something, my thoughts are on my work. Not a neurotic, freaking out, "I've got to do this right now or else," type of thought, but it's always in the back of my head. It worries me to the extent that I've seen workaholic attorneys. They never seem to be gone from the office. I'll come in a tad early, and they're there, and have to stay late to finish something up, and they still beat me out the door. I look at them, and I know I do not want that life.

I suppose with the amount of work I'm doing (work and school), I look forward to just having the nights off. But, I catch myself doing a little legal research for the projects that the attorneys I work for have given me. Hey, I can always bill those hours, doesn't matter where I do them. But, now that I'm done with school for the semester, you would think I wouldn't be as tired as I am having 15 hour days. But I find myself even more than my work/school days.

I suppose it's not so bad that there's something I'm good at and enjoy. I mean, I get all the legal research assignments now -- apparently because of my capability of finding the most obscure case law, no matter the jurisdiction, that could possibly help or hurt the case we're dealing with. But, I go to bed sometimes thinking if its too much. That by the time I get out of law school, I will be burnt out on law. Will I have spent all that time and money doing something I thought I wanted to do only to do a course direction on the eve of beginning to walk down the path that I trudged through hell and back to even find? Am I going to be one of those people that has a post-grad degree specifically for something and ending up not doing it? Will I do it because of the time and expense and not enjoy it?

But, I love research. I could spent 10 hours in a library and hit the stacks. The way one case is cited for one little bitty fact reference, and finding that cited case and having it be the jackpot you've been looking for, there's no greater feeling. Having the working attorney be shocked at something I found and be either ecstatic I found it or hopeful that the other guys don't.

How do I take a step back when its what I do? I don't want to burn out on it. I think I'm too good at it to have wasted the past 5 years on it. I have my 'releases' from work, but, lately, it hasn't been enough to keep my mind off of work for an entire weekend.

Dang, that went all over the place. If its incoherent, I apologize. A long semester and year is winding down, and my mind could use the time off. Till next time...