So, the 8-K on my life (bad joke, I know) is that I’m not getting a lot of sleep, but at least I’m working and studying a lot. Also, as I’m sure I’ve told everyone by now, I got the G1 Android phone and am absolutely flat-out taken with it. I’ve pleased the gadget gods — for the time being.

The past few weeks have been filled with temporary, but pleasant influxes and outfluxes of people coming in and out of the city — Thomas, then my mom, followed by Chris moving to Jersey and then Ali, Dan and Tina, etc. I am, of course, always happy to see them, but tired of the “please summarize the last X months/years of your life”-type conversations and inevitable partings…

It’s not that I don’t like New York City — I’m actually pretty happy with the job and the living situation, grateful to have people I know here, and I love the museums, the broadway shows and the amazing restaurants, etc. That was all as advertised, I admit.

But each time someone comes and goes from the city, I’m faced with a reminder of the transience of my current lifestyle — an extended, meandering vacation from my actual life: law school, career, family, etc. I have an apartment, yes. But the lease is only until August, and I could always sublet. I also have a job here, fine — except who knows how long that will last (with “these troubled economic times…”) and even if they didn’t lay me off, I could easily walk away; it’s a job and a paycheck, not a career.

I know my plan was always to put my life on hiatus for the time being while I got sorted out, but I don’t think I realized the fungibility of my job and the current components of my life would bother me. In some ways, I know I longed for this — in college, I felt so tied down with commitments, both academic and extra-cirricular, and it was exhausting mentally and emotionally. Now I’m here, and it’s weird to think that everyone I’ve been interacting with on a daily basis will probably be a stranger to me by the time I graduate from law school. I also wonder what else I could have done with these two years; the thought of Mr. Parmer talking about “opportunity costs” crosses my mind right now.

I can’t remember where I read that people are naturally adverse to the idea of decreasing options. I feel like now that I’m a full-fledged adult, the idea that I could potentially run out of time to do the things I want to do is dawning on me in a subtle but entirely unpleasant way.

I’ve been reading a book by Margaret Atwood called Moral Disorders and Other Stories. She writes amazing things, and this one is solid, but probably not my favorite — it’s just the one that is the most relevant to me at this juncture. The entire book is a collection of stories about a female character, Nell, told in a series of short stories at various points in her life. Throughout these stories, she explores what Nell could potentially become, the different types of people, the various female roles and the decisions that are made which determine these things; I’ve had a nagging feeling of discontent, but it didn’t really hit me what it was until I was reading one of the stories on the subway to work — the idea of being scared of being tied down to one option, one lifestyle, but also fearing the other extreme of endless wandering is one that haunts me, just a little, and I worry the reality of it will creep up on me too soon.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, March 11th, 2009 at 9:30 am and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.

Tags: Books, Electronics