Resilience

This has been another of those hard weeks. I am in trial on an incompetency case. My office moved buildings. Let me say that again, the public defender moved buildings.

This is the government, so I was old school this week in trial. I had no email, phone or printer. Everything was a hard copy I had printed the week before when one of the legal assistants was kind enough to let me use their cubicle (I had to print to the third floor so I got my cardio that day).

The trial while moving scenario was a test of my fortitude and resourcefulness. But when I got locked out of our new building with my purse, keys and files inside at six in the morning, I had hit my limit. As I hobbled the blocks from new office to old office on foot looking for a way in, I got blisters from my too tight shoes. I believe I literally screamed. Thankfully, there was no one on the street to hear.

It all worked out. That’s the thing, I am resilient and resourceful. My chaotic childhood and young adult years prepared me for almost everything in life. For example: walking to the park at seven years old to avoid the parental fighting, taking the bus to the mall in junior high to ditch and having to beg for quarters to get the bus home, figuring out a way to buy beer and cigs in my teens, and in high school, writing my own absentee notes and finally, throwing a kegger party and dealing with the police when my parents went out of town (finding the kegs was the hard part-see my blog post titled “kegger party”).

And the years of waiting tables didn’t hurt either. Once you’ve handled the scenario of an almost closed bar/restaurant and 50 people walking in, who you have to serve solo, you know you can do anything.

I guess what I am saying is that the biggest gift you can receive is resilience. It gives you confidence, self awareness, and most importantly, a sense of humor. And the ability to juggle a million things at once with a smile, including moving while in trial