Possibility

You know, try as we might to predict and plan for the future, we never know what our lives are going to look like. And sometimes just thinking about all the possible permutations my life could take makes me feel almost breathless with the heady sense of possibility. Sometimes, something you never even thought about could end up being the path your life is going to take.

I've never really thought about starting my own law firm before. I always figured I'd probably do what everybody else does--interview, interview, and interview some more during my 3L year, and become an associate at a  firm, and eventually work my way up the ranks to maybe become a partner after several years. I'd work under other people and on their schedule and their terms.

But I don't have to do that. Two of my young, fresh-out-of-law-school attorney friends have begun thinking and talking, at first casually and now more seriously, about starting their own law firm and going into business for themselves, and one of them asked me if I would be interested in working with them if they were to go through with it. I would most definitely be interested! Of course there's a ton of things I would have to think about. They're not even at all sure if they want to move forward with the idea or not . . . the two of them are still determining how well they'd be able to work together long-term, and there would be hefty start-up costs and a lot of other issues to take care of first. I feel like a plan like that would probably be in the works for approximately a year, or more, before it really came to fruition. And I'd have to pass the bar exam before I could actually officially join them as a licensed attorney, even though I'm pretty sure I could work under them, with their supervision, in the months between graduation and getting bar results back in October 2014. But if we did this, it would be so great to practice law on our terms and according to our values. I wouldn't have a boss. I could work as much as I needed to work to get the job done, but I wouldn't have to bill a set number of hours or go on boring corporate retreats or anything like that. And pretty much the coolest part is that we'd all be partners of equal status in the firm--and so I'd be a 25-year-old partner at a law firm, which doesn't sound bad at all!

This might not happen at all, or I could of course decide that it's not right for me or that another job is a better fit for me. I haven't known these people for a very long time, either, so I'm obviously nowhere near ready to make any sort of decision, but fortunately we're not anywhere close to me actually needing to make a decision about it. It's still in the very early stages of discussion. It's out there on the horizon as a possibility, but sometimes possibility is the most exciting thing in the world. And you know, if I don't start my own business with these two people, I could totally do it with somebody else. That is a real opportunity that I could choose to take, even if I've never considered it before.

And then there are other thoughts I've been having in the past couple weeks too, about life after law school and everything I could do with it. There are some really beautiful neighborhoods up here, and I already can name three or four that I can easily see myself buying a house in if I decide to live here after graduation (and the house-buying thing is something I've wanted to do for YEARS. I really think I'm going to try to do that within the next 2 years or so). And I picture myself buying and decorating my own home in one of those pretty neighborhoods, and doing some landscaping. I picture myself carving out a niche in this exciting city I've already come to love, and maybe in a few years finding someone to share it with when I'm ready for that.

I think I let the future freak me out too much when I really need to take a step back and just be excited about the twists and turns my life can take. I don't have to plan it all right this minute. It's not like our lives typically go exactly according to our plans anyway, and that's totally ok. I need to learn to sit back and enjoy the ride more, without always trying to see what's around the bend.