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I’ve been making my peace lately with something so profoundly difficult and painful that it’s taken over a year to even be able to talk about it. I finally have had to let go of the idea that I will be going back to my old job. When I left Texas, I left behind a career as a senior felony prosecutor at an office that I loved. One of my best friends took over my position, and I was happy to know that my cases were being looked after by someone I trusted to do a good job. Even after I left, I still had people calling me for advice on cases. I still worked on appeals when they needed me. I still talked to everyone and knew what was going on from day to day. I still was connected, even from over a thousand miles away.
I came back and went into private practice out of necessity. I had a house payment to make, children to provide for, and no other real choice for a way to make a living and still have something that looked like my former life. I have done well enough. Still, I have spent the last year or so with one foot in my old world. I suppose that was to be expected. Most of my best friends still work at the D.A.’s office and my own cases take me there at least a few times a week. I walk by my old office and see my things still there—my old Persian rug, my silly Saturday Night Fever light switch on the wall, all the various odds and ends that I left to mark my place in some way. I still go out to lunch with everyone just like when I worked there, I still banter with my old boss, I go to the conferences with all of my old friends. It’s like I never left. Except I am not there.
So I’ve lived and worked every day with this awful yearning to be part of my past. I’ve watched people move up and around, knowing that if I’d stayed I would have likely been at the top of the small county ladder. I have felt stupid for leaving and too proud to ever admit to anyone how much I missed it, how much I missed the work and the rhythm of it all. There are only a couple of people who know how much I’ve wished things could go back to the way they were. There hasn’t been a day when I didn’t think about it. I really was making myself sick about it—resenting each new hire, trying their cases in my head like a sad little armchair quarterback.
But the truth is, you can’t go back…not to any place that you’ve already been. Even if I got a call tomorrow offering me my old job, it wouldn’t be my old job. It would be something entirely different from what it was, something entirely different from what I remember. The reality of it would probably be a bitter disappointment compared to the version of the job that I’ve held in my head all these months.
I realize now that it’s time to let go of my past and move ahead. What I’ve been doing to myself isn’t healthy or fair…it’s been very much like sleeping with an ex-lover just often enough to keep old wounds from healing. It’s time to put my whole heart into what I’m doing now. It’s hard to let go of something that I loved so much, but it’s time. I’m more than a little disappointed with myself that it’s taken me so long to move on from all this. I have been so blind to the benefits of what I have now that I’m ashamed to have not appreciated it more. I don’t have to stop loving what I did, but I have to put it where it belongs—in the past—so I can get on with the present. I’m lucky to have so many beloved old lives to look back on. I’m blessed to have the opportunity for new lives ahead of me that I can’t even yet imagine. I don't have to let go of the people, but I have to let go of that place in my memory where we were all together in a certain way. I have to let all of us find our new ways to be with one another. Spring will be here soon as a physical reminder that things begin again and again. And so will I, begin again, with who I was in better perspective with who it is I am becoming.
I came back and went into private practice out of necessity. I had a house payment to make, children to provide for, and no other real choice for a way to make a living and still have something that looked like my former life. I have done well enough. Still, I have spent the last year or so with one foot in my old world. I suppose that was to be expected. Most of my best friends still work at the D.A.’s office and my own cases take me there at least a few times a week. I walk by my old office and see my things still there—my old Persian rug, my silly Saturday Night Fever light switch on the wall, all the various odds and ends that I left to mark my place in some way. I still go out to lunch with everyone just like when I worked there, I still banter with my old boss, I go to the conferences with all of my old friends. It’s like I never left. Except I am not there.
So I’ve lived and worked every day with this awful yearning to be part of my past. I’ve watched people move up and around, knowing that if I’d stayed I would have likely been at the top of the small county ladder. I have felt stupid for leaving and too proud to ever admit to anyone how much I missed it, how much I missed the work and the rhythm of it all. There are only a couple of people who know how much I’ve wished things could go back to the way they were. There hasn’t been a day when I didn’t think about it. I really was making myself sick about it—resenting each new hire, trying their cases in my head like a sad little armchair quarterback.
But the truth is, you can’t go back…not to any place that you’ve already been. Even if I got a call tomorrow offering me my old job, it wouldn’t be my old job. It would be something entirely different from what it was, something entirely different from what I remember. The reality of it would probably be a bitter disappointment compared to the version of the job that I’ve held in my head all these months.
I realize now that it’s time to let go of my past and move ahead. What I’ve been doing to myself isn’t healthy or fair…it’s been very much like sleeping with an ex-lover just often enough to keep old wounds from healing. It’s time to put my whole heart into what I’m doing now. It’s hard to let go of something that I loved so much, but it’s time. I’m more than a little disappointed with myself that it’s taken me so long to move on from all this. I have been so blind to the benefits of what I have now that I’m ashamed to have not appreciated it more. I don’t have to stop loving what I did, but I have to put it where it belongs—in the past—so I can get on with the present. I’m lucky to have so many beloved old lives to look back on. I’m blessed to have the opportunity for new lives ahead of me that I can’t even yet imagine. I don't have to let go of the people, but I have to let go of that place in my memory where we were all together in a certain way. I have to let all of us find our new ways to be with one another. Spring will be here soon as a physical reminder that things begin again and again. And so will I, begin again, with who I was in better perspective with who it is I am becoming.
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