Soooooo

I got a job offer last week and I have accepted.  Not without some mixed feelings though.  The job is perfectly great, fun and exciting even, but it requires changing my expectations and temporarily letting go of the vision I had of what life would be like after law school. 

I will be working for my law school as an admissions recruiter, which will involve working with prospective students, helping them navigate the admissions process, and traveling around the country to meet with students and tell them about my law school.  I have no problem doing this.  I loved my law school experience, I love and believe in the school I went to, I know everyone there and adore them.  I love to travel and think it's going to be a lot of fun to check out new cities and maybe even extend some trips into the weekend with Joe or friends or my mama.  These are all pros.

Cons: I'm not using my degree in the way I planned, I won't be making the income a recent law school graduate might reasonably expect, the job is temporary for now and will only last 6 months which doesn't provide me with the level of security I would like.  I also am making a 6 month commitment, so should I be offered a great job as a first-year associate some time in November, I can't accept it and have to hope they will be willing to wait until March.  On the other hand, I can call off the job search for a bit and take a much needed break from the job search hustle.  I don't know what will happen in 6 months.  There may be another position I can transition into at the law school or there might not be.  Maybe the economy will be slightly better and I can more easily find a traditional legal job or maybe not.  This alleviates a lot of immediate concerns, but still leaves a lot of unknowns. 

There's a part of me that is just happy to know there will be a salary for the next 6 months and that I get to do something fun and interesting and take a break from the traditional legal grind.  Then there's a part of me that just wants to be able to start my damn life already.  I just want to be able to plan for more than a semester or a summer or 6 months ahead.  I want to move on to the next phase.  I want to think about getting married and having kids and buying a house and getting a dog with excitement instead of frustration and fear. 

College and working like a crazy person and law school has all been to get me to the point where I could start my life and now it's finally supposed to be within my grasp and I still can't move towards it.  Everything is still temporary and in bits and pieces. 

I was recently talking to my cousin Kim about all this and I told her I get now why people would never want to re-live their 20s.  It's so frustrating and scary not knowing what's next and how everything is going to unfold and being broke.  I hate this.  It's exciting, she said.  You're so lucky.  You're going to look back at this time in your life one day and miss it.  I love her very much, but I call bullshit.  That is not my feeling about any of this right now.

I get that this is life.  You can't make plans and have everything always work out because that's what you expected.  It doesn't work that way.  I get that I'm incredibly lucky to have had two job offers in the last three months and to have firms where I know I can count on part-time hours if I need them, when I know lots of people who are struggling to even get interviews.  It's just frustrating to have worked so hard for so long, to theoretically have done everything right, and to have the rest of it be out of your control and not work out the way you hoped. 

But on the bright side, I'm really excited about the new job and the chance to do something different.  I'm happy to set mopey aside for a bit and concentrate on something new.  Though I'll also be quite happy when all this growing up crap is over.