Needing to be okay

[varkam]

I've been sort of bouncing off the walls this week.

Monday, I sat down with someone at the public defender's office about clerking there this summer. We talked for about an hour about why I want to work for them, etc.

Pretty much all my other classmates applied to any firm that was hiring this summer. I applied to the PD's office. It's the whole reason I came to law school. I don't want money. I don't want fame. I want to be a public defender, and I want to do that until I die or retire. I know that because I get the same feeling that psychology used to give me...that seems to be a lifetime ago. We're doing this competition at school for trial advocacy. It's not graded, and you don't get anything aside from experience...but when I read through the problem - all the evidence and depositions and whatnot...I don't know...I felt alive. I felt a passion that burned in me. Melodramatic, I know...but if I could spend my life doing that - and just that - not a day in my life would be work. I felt the same way when I read one of their pamphlets and it had their credo on it, and it ended with something like "If, at the end of my life, a few lonely souls have benefited from my efforts then I shall not have died in vain" It struck something deep inside me.

For some complicated reasons (beyond competition) I might not get it. There are certainly some obstacles with respect to them taking me on. So I really don't know what's going to happen. I know that, in the past, if something like this didn't go my way, my initial tendency was to go ahead and turn my back on recovery, because what's the point?

I know that I need to be okay with whatever happens. Sometimes, things that seem bad at first turn out to be really good. Back when I hit bottom, I was convinced that it was the worst time of my life...I lost so much. But now I'm convinced that it was really one of the best times of my life because I gained so much more.

I don't know what plan God or fate or my HP has in store for me. But I think a lot of it is about trust, and the fact that I am not omniscient and have to trust that this is where I am supposed to be, for whatever reason. If I choose to abandon that trust, then isn't that like me saying that I know more about what's best than my HP? I think it is.

So anyway...thank you for reading. It helps me more than I can say just to know that you folks are here for me.

[elleng]

1. Dear Varkam,

I'm so glad you've written! I similarly went to law school to do good for people, and very early on I was able to do so. I applaud your passion, and encourage you to go on with it.

Keep in touch, please.

[Why Syzygy]

2. .

[varkam]

4. Can't you just put me on ignore? eom

[Kajsa]

3. Varkam, you will be OK.

Things are tough for you right now.

You're under a lot of stress, attending
law school and thinking of where you will
go when you're done.

This always helped me when I was facing
seemingly unbeatable odds and started
thinking " what's the use?"

( three of the most dangerous words in recovery!)
( four if you don't count the contraction)

If you drink/use/ relapse you will come to at some point,
with the problem and the pain of relapse on top of it.

You will be OK!

:hug:

[varkam]

5. Kajsa -

Thank you for your kind words. :pals:

[Justpat]

6. I hope things work out for you to contribute to society in law -

but if you don't get the position you want, you are still OK.


Stay close to your HP. Stay close to the program.
And know that you can always come here and find people who care about you to listen.

All the best... pat