Heaven Knows I'm Miserable Now

There is an old Smiths song that goes "I was looking for a job and then I found a job and heaven knows I'm miserable now".

Please don't call me ungrateful. I know I have it good but life could be better.

I have a great job as a public defender. I spent years at large civil corporate law firms wanting to slit my wrists with a paper clip. It was only when I came to the Public Defender's Office that I found fulfillment representing the indigent. I love what I do. Fighting for the underdog makes me happy.

And I get six weeks of vacation and county paid holidays off.

Still I know there is more out there for me. I've been working on my memoir for six years since my father's death in 2006. His eulogy turned into one of the early stories in my book and that story is being published in a literary journal next week. I've come a long way. I've attended writing classes, week long workshops and started a blog. But still. Six years.

I wish I could spend one year writing and editing. We don't have kids so my only distraction would be my shih tzus and my mother in law (who gets up at eleven am and I get up at five am so we are set on that one).

To imagine it is to believe it can happen. I have had to convince myself that I am a writer. I am a writer. I am a writer. I am a writer. I click my heels and say it over and over.

My work has value is my other mantra. My stories need to be told. The story of a little girl and her two sisters growing up in a chaotic household with an alcoholic father and crazy mother. This is the stuff from which great memoirs are made.

I am going to keep telling myself that until I believe it.