Finding a Good Place

I don't have much time to blog these days, and it has been at least 6 weeks since I wrote in a journal, which is something really important for my own emotional health and well-being, so tonight I'm having a chai tea latte & writing party at Starbucks and it's going to be great. It's time for writing for my blog, writing in my journal, and reading my Bible, which I'm sorry to say has been really neglected in recent days. The Bible app on my phone is just not the same as my real Bible with all of its stains and ripped pages and underlining, and I'm ready to get back to the real thing. My thoughts are all over the place right now and there's a lot of different things on my mind that I want to share with you, but this is a start.

So, I work with pretty much the best people in the world, and I am so blessed to be where I am. I'm finding my place here. We have a lot of fun together and are always laughing about something. I don't feel quite comfortable enough yet to really show people my sense of humor because so far I've been pretty much all business in the office, but I feel like in the next few weeks I will get to that point and really join in to some of these conversations. Yesterday I was totally absorbed in a parenting plan I was working on, and didn't really notice that pretty much everyone else in the office had already left (most people stay till 6 or so, but not on Fridays--usually we're gone by 5:30 or so on Fridays). Then E. came back by my office at about 5:45 and was like, "It's Friday night! Leave!" I said, "But I'm not done yet!" She said, "It's ok, you can finish your project on Monday!" Then she started asking me whether I was getting acclimated and whether I was making friends and feeling comfortable here and things like that, and it made me really emotional because I'm still getting used to how wonderful it is to work in a place where people care about me. People don't ask you questions like that unless they really care about you, and it feels so, so good to work with people who are kind and who actually care. I haven't always had that privilege (read: former job where the boss yelled at people all the time for anything and everything). For my first couple weeks of working here, I was so scared to make any mistakes on my work because I was afraid of getting yelled at because that's what I'm used to, but I've realized by now that that's simply not going to happen, and it's like breathing a huge sigh of relief as I've realized: This is not my old job. God has given me something better. And I don't know how to tell you how good it feels to go to work in a place like this, a place where laughing is the norm instead of yelling, a place where it's not cutthroat competitive and we all get along, a place where I don't have to be scared to make mistakes because I know D. and E. will simply calmly show me how to fix my mistakes instead of getting mad. And a place where my boss pretty much kicks me out of the office because it's Friday night and time for the weekend. :) All I really wanted going into this job was to be treated with a baseline level of respect and professionalism, and I've been given so much more than that. I've been given people who are kind and funny and generous, and it is such a blessing to work with them. I'm happy and excited when I wake up in the morning to go to work, and that in and of itself is a great feeling. Life is too short to wake up 5 days a week dreading your job, or to be in a bad mood every Sunday night because the weekend is over.

I've been extra emotional this week about everything, and I've not really been able to pinpoint exactly why. I've been emotional about realizing that I'm in a good place now, and I don't need to be stressed out about anything here, because I have people here who care about me and who are going to help me out. I've been emotional about the ongoing stressful state of career and life limbo that is waiting for bar results. Sometimes I can "forget" about it for a short time, but then I remember and usually end up feeling just kind of mad because having your whole life up in the air for 3 straight months is not so much fun, especially when you desperately want to keep what you've been given because you love it, but it all depends on what happens in October. I'm doing my best to trust, to believe that God is FOR me no matter what happens. He is for me. I've been emotional today because this day marks exactly four years since one of my close friends in college died from cancer. I know that there will always be a heaviness of heart when I revisit that experience and that time in my life. I don't think about it very much and I talk about it even less, but no matter how far removed you are from it, you never completely stop missing someone you've lost. I've been emotional, in a good way, about how God keeps allowing me to cross paths with people who are looking for community in this city as badly as I am. I ran into someone I knew in law school at church last Sunday, and I wouldn't have even called her a "friend" exactly just because we barely knew each other. But we're both new in town and we were so excited to see each other just because it's so good to run into a familiar face. And we talked and have been texting all week about starting up a Christian female attorneys' small group here, and I'm so excited about it! I think it will be great both for spiritual support and networking (two of my favorite things!) I still love networking. Networking is how I got this job, and now one of my job responsibilities is to make contacts with others and build relationships in the community to help promote "client development" and meet people who may need our legal services. We had our first client development meeting this week, and I was told that I didn't need to produce a list of potential referrals because I had only been working here for 3 weeks and wasn't expected to have met anyone yet. But I had been out and about meeting people at my church small group and other events the entire previous week, so I made a list anyway of my potential contacts from those meetings. The founder of the firm had this to say about my list: "Lauren, I can't wait to see what you'll be able to do when you've worked at this law firm for more than three weeks!" (Soft skills/ networking for the win!) I mean, it's just socializing with a purpose, and we all know I love to socialize because I love to talk . . .

Well, I have a big week ahead of court, depositions, community group, meeting to brainstorm the attorneys' small group, brunch with Jenny, some DIY projects I want to do in the apartment, and I'm sure some other stuff that will come up last minute. I have some fashion and decorating blog posts hopefully coming soon, so stay tuned for those!