I am a runner?

In kindergarten, my mom would wake me before the sun rose.  We would drive to a track filled with men and women in gray shorts and t-shirts with ARMY emblazoned across the chest.  I would sleep in the car as my mom completed her PT (physical training).  My sister and I would cheer my mom during her PT tests, and we would celebrate as she maxed her PT test, every year.  


When I was in first grade, she entered a road race in Plains, Georgia, the home of Jimmy Carter.  She won her race that year and won a kiss from Jimmy Carter when she received her metal.  The next year, she entered me in a road race.  I was so excited as we stood among the crowd of runners.  People were bouncing up and down, antsy for the start of the race.  The gun went off.  My mom held my hand, looked down at me and said, "Here we go.  Start slow."  I loved it.  For about the first half of the race.  Then, I was done.  I was not going to take one more step.  I stopped.  I sat down on the side of the road.  The only problem was that at that point we were in the middle of a peanut field in the middle of Georgia.  My mom tried to reason with me.  I would not leave my spot on the side of the road.  And then, understandably, she got ticked.  I remember her trying to pull me to my feet.  I refused.  I crossed my arms.  And, by the way, there were still throngs of runners passing us at this point.   We finished the race eventually.  I figure that I have that incident coming back to me eventually through my strong-willed LM.


In college, I ran to meet guys at the gym and to off-set the beer.  I am going to ignore, for the moment, the time when I wasn't paying attention, tripped myself on the treadmill and got spit out the back.  I have never been graceful.  At some point in college, though, running became my time to get away.  It was a chance to not care about what anyone else thought.  I didn't care how fast or how far I went, just that I was out the door.


At the firm, running was my life line.  At 6:30 a.m., I would hit the treadmill.  I would watch the Today Show, content to know that I could run and my bb wouldn't buzz.  Later in the day, I could tell myself that if nothing else went right that day, at least I had taken a bit of time for myself in the morning.  Other days, I would race down to the gym at 8:30 p.m.  (The gym closed at 9:00 p.m.)  I would tell the person behind the desk that I just needed to get in a few miles.  I would run hard.  I would push myself, see just how fast I could run with angry music blaring in my ears.  My legs would ache as I limped back upstairs to finish my work.  The dull ache was a pleasant reminder that at least I had taken a bit of time for myself.  Before I became pregnant, I trained for and ran a half-marathon about every six months at the firm.  


Now, I struggle to run.  How do I make time during my harried day to just get out the door?  I don't know.  Perhaps I need to master our huge jogging stroller.  Perhaps I need to run at lunch, glares from the partners be damned.  Whatever the solution, I need to find it.  Running is my sanity, and without it, I find a darkness invades my days.  The darkness makes me loathe my job even more.  The darkness makes it tough to see the humor.  The darkness makes me love being a mom a little less.  I need running.  I just need to figure out how to get out the door.

Tainted

Yesterday, a colleague told me, "I think its BS that you are considered 'tainted' because you work part-time."  Her comment didn't sting at the time.  Afterall, I know how part-time attorneys are viewed in this office.  But today, that comment stings, and it frightens me.

 

Before I became pregnant - and before I announced to the office that I was pregnant - I worked hard.  I earned my badge of honor:  I was on a trial team that basically required me to sleep at the office for at least three months; I was screamed at by the partner who screams; I ate breakfast, lunch and dinner at my desk; I drafted a PI opposition over the weekend (while going through infertility treatments unbeknownst to my office); I saw the sunrise and sunset from my desk; I worked out of a client office for a week (at ten weeks pregnant); I led doc review teams and managed junior associates.  The day before I announced that I was pregnant, I was viewed as a "team player."  I would do what was required to get the work done.  No one dared question my commitment, my work ethic.  And then, it changed.  It was not a seismic shift.  Looking back, I don't think I even realized it was happening.  The partner who leads our practice group was incredibly supportive of me, of the pregnancy.  When my blood pressure shot up towards the middle of my pregnancy, I was encouraged to do what I needed to protect the pregnancy. 

 

The first fall that I was at the firm, a woman in my practice group returned from maternity leave.  She broke down amongst a group of women, saying that her commitment to the job had been questioned.  I smuggly sat at the table and thought, "that won't happen to me, because I will be valued.  Before I go on my maternity leave, I will show them that I am committed to this job.  I am different.  That won't happen to me." 

 

It happened to me.  What I did before my pregnancy: the long hours, the work, the sacrifice, has all vanished.  Now I am defined by my part-time status.  I am defined by the fact that I will be home to see my son. every. night. I was sure that I could beat the rap that came with working part-time.  I was sure that I would still be valued.  But I am not. 

A day is coming in a little over a month where I fully expect my superiors to question my comittment, my work ethic (my three month status review).  I expect to be sat down, to be told that I should do more, be more, bill more.  I will not be allowed to point to all that came before.  They will not hear me say that this is an adjustment period.  They will not hear me say that when I am at work, I am committed to doing what must be done, I am efficient, I bill.  They will not hear me.  

 

While I cannot wait to leave the firm behind, I value the hard-work, the accomplishments, and the hours that I have committed to the firm.  And now, it feels as though all of those sacrifices are trivilized.  All that came before is minimized - and that is what stings.  I am excited to leave the firm behind, but not yet.  For now, I need the job, the income.  I fear that my status places me on the chopping block, regardless of what I have done in the past - and that is what frightens me.  Years ago, I naively thought I could escape the view that I would be "lesser" when I returned from maternity leave.   I did not.  

Reason 425 Why I Co-Sleep With My Son

About thirty minutes before the LM wakes up every morning, he becomes a wiggle butt.  He flops around, kicks his legs, rolls with authority, wants his pacifier and then really doesn't.   Occasionally, I can pull him onto my chest and he will drift back to sleep for another thirty minutes.  Those thirty minutes are my gradual alarm clock, as he almost always wakes up between 6:00 and 7:00.  This morning, however, he started wiggling at 4:30 a.m.  I braced myself for an early wake-up.  He started squirming.  He kicked.  He inched higher and higher in the bed.  He found my arm.  Picked his head up and slammed it down on my arm.  Then he rolled towards me, head still on my arm, cuddled into me, sighed and drifted back into a deep sleep.  I pulled the covers up a little higher and held him tight.  While there are nights and mornings when I question whether he is ready for his crib full-time, mornings like these, I am so very happy to have my little bear next to me in bed.

It happened. And I am forever grossed out.

Our nanny keeps a log of what she and the little man do every day: how much he eats, when he sleeps, that today they were playing and she was making animal noises and he cried when she mooed like a cow.  But only that noise.  We may have a vegetarian on our hands.  Anyway, she noted that she gave him prunes for lunch as he was clearly having trouble in the morning and did not have his usual morning constitutional.  Fast forward to dinner tonight:  I was feeding LM when I noticed that he was clearly trying to poop.  I gave the kid a few minutes and we finished dinner.  

We have a routine down for bathtime.  I jump in the bath.  J strips the kid down to his diaper and brings him into the bathroom.  He takes off the diaper and hands LM to me in the bathtub.  We have added a step for when the kid has pooped.  J is supposed to take the diaper off before he comes in the bathroom and clean the kid.  Otherwise, we have the scene from a few nights ago where I precariously hold LM above the water with his butt to J while J attempts to clean the kid with toilet paper.  There is a reason that baby wipes are stronger than toilet paper -- toilet paper doesn't work on baby poop.  At all.  It also sticks to baby butts and ends up floating in the water.  Tonight J skipped the step of cleaning the kid before he came into the bathroom, which led to LM being cleaned with toilet paper.  As J was leaving he said, "Wow. I hope he's done.  Oh wait, LM poop on mommy that would be funny."  Famous last words.

Did I mention that I filled the bath extra full tonight?  With lots of bubbles.  Bubbles make it hard to see what is in the water.  LM and I were enjoying our bath when I felt something in the water.  At first I thought it was just a piece of left over toilet paper.  Oh no.  The kid had let it rip, big time.  I squelled.  J came running.  LM cried.  We tried to clean it up.  Just at the point where we started letting the water drain, he let another one rip.  I squelled more.  We got that cleaned up.  I was sitting in a messy, gross tub, getting ready to hand LM to John, when the kid, yet again, let one rip.  on my thigh.  At that point, I just handed LM to John, got toilet paper and cleaned myself up.  And then I disinfected the tub.

The bath, round 2 of the evening was much less eventful.  I took a long shower after.  Will may have missed his bedtime tonight.  I think I'm going to go shower again.

Drained

I still have no work.  I spent the better part of yesterday morning trying to psych myself up to go ask for more (read: any) work.  I told myself that it would be fine.  That I could handle whatever it was that was thrown at me.  I summoned the courage to walk into head partner's office and announce (insist!) that I be given billable work.  I was ready.  And then the phone rang.

 

It was our home line.  I answered the phone prepared for the usual mid-day update: the LM had had a nap, eatten a bit and they were going for a walk (or something similar).  What I heard instead was J on the verge of his sanity and the baby wailing.  J told me through a tear strained voice that the LM had refused to nap in the morning.  The LM had been crying for an hour straight, J couldn't get him to stop and did not know what to do.  I listened to my husband struggle with a screaming baby and I listened to my baby crying so hard that he had trouble catching his breath. 

I calmly asked J to tell me what had happened and what he had tried.  I calmly gave a few suggestions: try getting him outside, even into our small backyard, go for a walk, and the horror, try putting him in front of the tv.  I listened to my baby try and catch his breath through his screams.  I calmly asked if the LM had a temperature.  J said no.  I calmly told J that he was doing great, this wasn't a reflection of him, and I listened to my baby scream in the background.  I told J that he and the LM would be fine, and that I would check back in fifteen minutes.  I calmly hung up the phone, got up and closed my office door.

 

And then, for the first time since returning from my maternity leave, I closed the door, fell into a heap and cried.  Over the past four weeks, I have cried because I missed the LM, because I really wanted to be home with him, but this was different.  I cried because my baby was screaming and I could do nothing to make it better.  As much as I wanted to, I refrained from asking J if he had held the LM in just the right while singing to him.  Had he tried the mobile?  Had he called over the Monster to give the LM a kiss (a never fail to make the LM happy)?  I didn't run through my list.  I tried not to judge.  There was nothing I could do but sit down on my office floor and cry.  And that's what I did.  When I stood back up, I used the visine I keep at my desk to dry my eyes, and then I tried to remember what I had been doing before the call.  Oh right, I was trying to summon the courage to go ask for more work. 

 

I was not ready.  I was not ready to ask for work.  I was not ready to hear my baby screaming on the other end of the phone and not be able to do a thing to make it better.  I had used all of my energy remaining calm for J, and now I was done.  Work could wait for tomorrow.

The Fear

The Fear is real as a big-law associate.  It is a fear that constantly lurks at you from your calendar, lurks from the quiet phone at your desk, and most of all, lurks at you from the email in your iPhone.  The Fear is smallest on a Monday morning and grows with each day of the week, becoming its largest the day before you leave for a vacation planned months ago.  And now, as a new parent, it lurks everyday behind the pictures of the little man, ever threatening my few hours with him in the evening and on the weekends. 

 

The Fear is not that something will happen to the little man (but, oh do I have that fear too, but that is the subject for another time).  It is the Fear of being assigned to THAT CASE or THAT PARTNER.  I have had the Fear come to life several times in my big-law career.  It happened one evening in May:  I was at a social gathering at the Firm having a glass of wine on a Friday evening, when the bb buzzed.  I returned to my desk and awaited the call: "So I'm going to need some help this weekend."  And in a flash, my weekend was gone.  Instead of spending time with J, I spent my weekend searching down every possible nuance to some archane legal question because the big-mean, higher-up partner was displeased with a prior associate's "merely adequate" research.  Come Monday morning, I had a chart (there is always a chart), a four-inch indexed binder and summary of my research.  But that materialization of the Fear wasn't too bad.  It lasted only a weekend. 

 

One day in April, I received the call.  Senior Associate needed help with a bit of doc review.  We met in the firm library with the associate who was getting ready to leave the Firm.  Senior Associate told me, "This is just a bit of doc review.  Not a twelve hour a day, gig.  Oh, and maybe some help with stuff down the line."  Five months later, I had met my billables for the year, I hadn't had dinner at home with J in months and I had learned to sleep in my office (at another Senior Associate's suggestion).  The real low-point was when I growled (yes, actually growled) at a paralegal in the hallway and then chewed out the food delivery guy for bringing the wrong pasta.  It was not a nice, "hey, I ordered eggplant parm and you brought chicken parm."  It was a full forced blast of the poor delivery guy, and the manager.  Sigh.  Not a high point.  In five months, we went from discovery to trial.  After the trial, I took a week off.  It was the only time (other than maternity leave) that I have taken a whole week off from biglaw, and it was at the blessing and encouragement of the powers that be.

 

With the PARTNER, the case itself may not be that bad or demanding, but the PARTNER is.  She gives vague instructions, tells you to pester someone else with the "minutae" and then blasts you for not having read her mind.  She makes the criticism personal:  YOU are not doing well.  YOU are inadequate.  Sometimes, she tears you down "just to see how you handle it."  When you are assigned to the PARTNER, other associates "check-in" with you to make sure you are o.k.  Some partners insist that you produce 2 + 2 to make 4, in four hours when you need six.  Those partners are tough.  This partner insists that you make 2 + 3 equal apple.  And there is no way to convince her that it just can't be done.  While you may make it home for dinner, you are a puddle of self-doubt.  You emerge a bit stronger, and with a stronger resolve to quit.  Soon.

 

The outcome, or materialization of, the Fear is that in a moment's notice, your next weekend, month or year is no longer your own.  You are at the mercy of the CASE or the PARTNER.  "No" is not an acceptable response when you are on the CASE.  It must be done.  Now.  The letter cannot wait until tomorrow morning.  It must be drafted tonight, at 9 p.m., to await Partner's review when she strolls in tomorrow morning.  The CASE does not care that you also have a motion due in two weeks.  Figure it out.  Get it done.  There are twenty-four usable hours in every day.  The CASE does not care that you haven't seen your husband or child in a week.  Your personal problems are not the PARTNER's problems.  When a friend turned down an assignment, a partner actually asked her to account for every hour in her day.  And then told her she had more time.  Two weeks before her wedding.  When the Fear materializes and you are assigned to the CASE, you become someone you used to loathe.  You become a raging jerk, to everyone: the paralegals, your secretary, your spouse, the innocent guy at Sbucks (who doesn't understand that you need your coffee but the PARTNER has just asked you where you are).  You become someone that under other circumstances you would disapprove of, and then pity.  The taste left in your mouth and head from the CASE lingers for months and years.  You look back with horror at how you treated others and how you treated yourself.  Yes, you may have valuable experience and war stories under your belt, but your soul will never be the same.

 

The Fear keeps me cowering at my desk.  Although I have no work as of yet, the Fear keeps me from requesting an assignment.  For if you press to hard, you may be assigned to THAT CASE or THAT PARTNER.  Now that the little man waits at home, unable to understand that saying "no" is not always an option, the Fear is nearly crippling.  Toward the end of the five months, J looked at me late one night, and said "I want my wife back."  I refuse to put the little man through the horror of the CASE or the PARTNER.  I do not want to become who I was.  I try to create an alternate me for work.  Someone who is strong, can manage it all and is ready to take it on.  But in reality?  I'm terrified.  Terrified of days passing without seeing my son.  Terrified of when the call or email will come.

5:30 a.m.

5:30 a.m. is not awake time.  5:30 to 6:30 is my final, blissful hour of sleep where I begin to wake up, peer down at my adorable cherub, cuddle him a bit and doze off (frequently while prodding J that it is time for him to get out of bed while praying that the dog does not bark to wake us all up).  But this morning, the little man thought that 5:30 was time to get up.  He was intent on letting us know that it was time to play, time to explore our faces with his new and developing pincer grasp, and time to talk to his best friend, Mr. Skylight.  So, I let him babble, grab, turn and play between J and me.  And then at 6:30, he decided it was time to go back to sleep.  So I held him on my chest and he and I both drifted back to sleep.  During my maternity leave, this was how we began many of our mornings.  The Little Man ("LM") would wake up, we would play in bed for an hour or so, and then he and I would take a morning nap. 

When J reentered the bedroom at 7:00 to take LM, so that I could shower, I decided to let the LM sleep for a few more minutes.  Actually, I wanted to hold him for just a few more minutes, a few more minutes before I began my eratic and harried routine and day.  A few more minutes where I could pretend that this was what my day would be, where my only concern would be how LM was sleeping, eating and playing.  Where I did not have to worry about not having work, or being staffed on THAT CASE.  So I laid in bed for an extra ten minutes, knowing that I would be more harried than usual.  When I finally sat up to hand off LM, he blinked at me, not understanding why we couldn't nap a bit longer, why I was taking the warmth away.  I warned J that he was about to let out a cry, and cry he did.