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ravenI am on holiday. On Wednesday afternoon, at 4pm, I had an email from my supervisor detailing, with usual lack of clarity, a task they had for me, finishing with urgent. I did it till five and then did it till I was late for my dinner plans, and then it was getting on for seven and I left the building, and since then I have been on holiday. On Thursday I slept without dreaming until ten, and went out through the crystal cold day and wrote the novel in a cafe and went around the shops and watched a bit of TV and took a long bath, and it was all a little misanthropic but very reviving; today I took a French class, went to London and met roga, who is visiting from Israel, and we went to Camden Lock and to the Wellcome Collection, both of which were great fun in different ways, and we walked around in the cold talking and drinking hot apple juice. For dinner we met gavagai, who is carrying a lot of luggage, these days, while wearing Docs with silver sequins on; for some reason she thinks it very hilarious that I described her a glam rock polar explorer.
By which I mean to say, I think I needed, really needed these two days: a day to be misanthropic, and a day to see people and do things. I still think, incidentally, that my job is sucking all life out of me. But I shall be doing it for eighteen months more only - I will not be one of those people who does something they hate for forty years. So I told my French teacher, when she asked, in shaky and ungrammatical French, that I shall keep doing these lessons with her, infrequently but not stopping, and after eighteen months are over I shall do something sensible like go and spend a solid chunk of time in a French-speaking area and learn more that way. I shall go to India and learn to read Hindi newspapers.
And I bought red boots - Docs, but not glam rock - the other day, when my parents said to buy something nice to mark my birthday. They're lovely, rich ruby red, not at all practical, not at all something sensible grown-ups wear to work. But I have this gorgeous black frock coat from Topshop, that I'm wearing all the time now; I bought it full-price the December before last, then didn't take it to Ithaca because it wasn't thick or sturdy enough for the climate. It lived in a cupboard for a year until I pulled it out this winter, and I love it just as much as ever. In the same way my red boots will live in the cupboard for eighteen months, which is not that very long. More than eighteen months ago, I was accepted by Cornell, and that was recent, as major life things go. So I go on and I go on, and I will do these eighteen months and qualify, and then I will take the New York bar exam, and then, at the age of twenty-seven years and one month, I will be done with grown-up life forever. I have been told, by people who mean well and people who don't, that I'll grow up and know better than the life I foolishly think I want to lead. A life where I don't make very much money; an itinerant life, a life that contributes to GDP not a whit and my pension plan hardly at all; a life as a researcher, a scholar, a public servant, a fan, a writer, a citizen. A life like both my parents have led, like both my grandfathers led.
Well, I'll be able to say then, I am grown-up. I am a lawyer in two jurisdictions, I have worked in private practice. I make the choice not to be unhappy; I make the choice to aspire to other things. I make the choice to wear red boots and to be a fangirl. You can't rescue me from myself. And then when I think about it like that: that I can dispense with that life in a year and a half, that I can say to myself, self, you made a choice, you took responsibility for your own happiness, you made a choice to live by your beliefs, then I think it's all worthwhile, after all.
roga, who is visiting from Israel, and we went to Camden Lock and to the Wellcome Collection, both of which were great fun in different ways, and we walked around in the cold talking and drinking hot apple juice. For dinner we met gavagai, who is carrying a lot of luggage, these days, while wearing Docs with silver sequins on; for some reason she thinks it very hilarious that I described her a glam rock polar explorer.By which I mean to say, I think I needed, really needed these two days: a day to be misanthropic, and a day to see people and do things. I still think, incidentally, that my job is sucking all life out of me. But I shall be doing it for eighteen months more only - I will not be one of those people who does something they hate for forty years. So I told my French teacher, when she asked, in shaky and ungrammatical French, that I shall keep doing these lessons with her, infrequently but not stopping, and after eighteen months are over I shall do something sensible like go and spend a solid chunk of time in a French-speaking area and learn more that way. I shall go to India and learn to read Hindi newspapers.
And I bought red boots - Docs, but not glam rock - the other day, when my parents said to buy something nice to mark my birthday. They're lovely, rich ruby red, not at all practical, not at all something sensible grown-ups wear to work. But I have this gorgeous black frock coat from Topshop, that I'm wearing all the time now; I bought it full-price the December before last, then didn't take it to Ithaca because it wasn't thick or sturdy enough for the climate. It lived in a cupboard for a year until I pulled it out this winter, and I love it just as much as ever. In the same way my red boots will live in the cupboard for eighteen months, which is not that very long. More than eighteen months ago, I was accepted by Cornell, and that was recent, as major life things go. So I go on and I go on, and I will do these eighteen months and qualify, and then I will take the New York bar exam, and then, at the age of twenty-seven years and one month, I will be done with grown-up life forever. I have been told, by people who mean well and people who don't, that I'll grow up and know better than the life I foolishly think I want to lead. A life where I don't make very much money; an itinerant life, a life that contributes to GDP not a whit and my pension plan hardly at all; a life as a researcher, a scholar, a public servant, a fan, a writer, a citizen. A life like both my parents have led, like both my grandfathers led.
Well, I'll be able to say then, I am grown-up. I am a lawyer in two jurisdictions, I have worked in private practice. I make the choice not to be unhappy; I make the choice to aspire to other things. I make the choice to wear red boots and to be a fangirl. You can't rescue me from myself. And then when I think about it like that: that I can dispense with that life in a year and a half, that I can say to myself, self, you made a choice, you took responsibility for your own happiness, you made a choice to live by your beliefs, then I think it's all worthwhile, after all.
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no subject
on 2012-02-04 01:08 am (UTC)no subject
on 2012-02-04 04:02 am (UTC)no subject
on 2012-02-04 04:27 am (UTC)I have never lived the life anybody has expected me to. Including myself, five years prior, at any given time.
I am happy. I hope you will be, too!
no subject
on 2012-02-04 04:48 am (UTC)no subject
on 2012-02-04 05:16 am (UTC)no subject
on 2012-02-04 04:56 pm (UTC)no subject
on 2012-02-04 01:12 am (UTC)(I once got a CD lyric insert signed by Dar and couldn't come up with anything better to say than "Thank you; you say important things," but I meant it. I'm fairly sure she got me through college.)
no subject
on 2012-02-04 01:34 am (UTC)no subject
on 2012-02-04 01:54 am (UTC)no subject
on 2012-02-04 02:39 am (UTC)no subject
on 2012-02-04 03:21 am (UTC)no subject
on 2012-02-04 03:48 am (UTC)There are few people I admire more than those who have figured out how to live their lives so that they are happy.
no subject
on 2012-02-04 09:24 am (UTC)no subject
on 2012-02-04 10:18 am (UTC)(Also, I envy you your red Docs - they sound gorgeous. One of my coworkers had a lovely dark red pair, and I expressed great admiration; one day, when I feel brave enough - and well-off enough - I plan to go Docs-shopping myself.)
no subject
on 2012-02-06 07:57 am (UTC)no subject
on 2012-02-07 10:34 pm (UTC)no subject
on 2012-02-08 09:14 pm (UTC)