Despertar

be careful what you wish for

Hardest summer of my life. I haven't cried over Justin, not once. I'm too busy and too exhausted to invest the time or energy to be upset about him again.

The earliest I ever leave the office is seven-thirty. The latest is midnight. Mostly it averages out around nine o'clock, and if I'm not too fatigued to imagine the three-block walk at the end of my commute, I take the Metro home. Otherwise I hail a cab out of Dupont Circle. The firm comps any expenses like that, so long as they're incurred while an associate is busting his or her ass at the office till forever.

I get home. I stagger from the lobby of my apartment building upstairs to bed.

Here's where I always wish I had the energy to do something fun, like watch a Seinfeld rerun or play a couple of my Sims houses. Never happens. I know now to brush my teeth on my trajectory from the door to the bed, because the second my skin touches sheets, I pass out instantly.

I wake up at five-thirty for the gym, because they force-feed us endless food and drink in the course of duty, and I refuse, I just refuse, to have to buy new suits halfway through the summer. My hips hurt. A few hypochondriac Google searches convinced me I have either double bursitis or rheumatoid arthritis, but it's probably just overexertion on the exercise bike. I bring a book. I read all of Frank Wu's Yellow and Aaron's thesis novel at the gym.

I get sweaty. I stagger upstairs and shower. I pick an outfit. I only own two suits and about five nice blouses, but I've got hundreds of separates I combine in various ways and attempt to pass off as work outfits. The basic guidelines are no thighs, no cleavage, armpits only sparingly. Camisoles with high necklines factor heavily into my outfit creation process. I once threw a raspberry blouse under a knee-length black cocktail dress, paired it with heels and pulled a convincing Sexy Secretary.

By the time I reach the Metro, I've already sweated through the closest layer of clothes. The escalator at my destination stop is the second-longest escalator in the world, after some even higher one in Moscow. Riding it feels endless. I read on that escalator, too. I sometimes feel like the people behind me are looking up my skirt.

At the top, a homeless man with a battered guitar is always playing "Karma Police" for money. I've given him a dollar now and then.

The workday itself can be really interesting or really brutal, but rarely is it anything in between. If I have enough energy to make it through eleven hours of reading and highlighting, drafting, fact-finding and fact-checking and writing and revising and defending what I've written, schmoozing over lunch and auto-piloting through obligatory happy hours, it's actually pretty fun. I never feel like I'm not being challenged. I never like there's any part of my brain that isn't being engaged. I have to be analytical, but I also have to be creative. I get to work with new people every day, but I'm starting to form meaningful relationships--and godsent mentorships--with older attorneys who don't want the firm to die with them.

A guy at work likes me; more on that later. His office is eight doors down from mine.

My secretary hates me. I've never had a secretary before, and all I really know about the associate/assistant relationship is what I've seen in pop culture, so I feel awkward using her to do what I imagine is her actual job. She's in her sixties and I'm some kid, and even just calling her by her first name feels weird, particularly when it's to shit-eatingly beg her to fix the copier I just broke. This perceived awkwardness means I end up doing a lot of my own menial tasks myself, which in this economic climate would, I'm guessing, make any professional support person feel resentful. Also, other people's secretaries keep candy on their desk, and mine never does.

You have to go to expensive lunches with associates and partners whenever possible. The firm comps those, too, and it's how you form the personal relationships that trigger professional opportunities. Also, I'm guessing that at some of the bigger lunches, at least one person at the table is constantly watching you to make sure you know which soup spoon to use and everything. Before this, my table etiquette training was all sort of theoretical. So that's nice. Once, though, I ordered a steak I didn't realize would be smothered with a béarnaise sauce, and I had to throw up in the bathroom just to make it through the rest of the lunch without looking rude.

Everything I do is subject to evaluation. On Thursday of this week, I'm meeting with a committee of partners to talk about my progress to the halfway point. Could anything be more nerve-wracking? And because of, again, the economic climate, this process is much less about their courting us than it is about our convincing them we are worth it. That we'll singlehandedly turn the path of revenue around, that we know our case law as fully as we know our pincites.

I sometimes don't think I do, et cetera. I'm sure everyone else is smarter than me, et cetera.

If I get the job I'm conditionally performing right now, I will be earning five times annually what I'm earning this summer. I won't ever have to worry about making rent or splurging on, say, better work clothes.

On the other hand, my mentor likes to remind me it's never as "easy" again as it is right now. That till you make partner, you sink your whole life and many of your precious nights and weekends into proving yourself, ad infinitum. And I just absolutely refuse to do this if it means I never get to have a baby.