Today, the day of the new administration and President's inauguration, I am feeling weirdly optimistic. Sometimes, the worst things happen, bad people get elected, good Presidents step down, fathers die, you find out you're infertile, and the world still keeps moving. The sun rises, rain falls, people eat, coffee percolates, and the universe survives.
If you had asked me when I was in law school what my goals were, I would have told you, to be a wildly successful lawyer. Back then, I had no idea how soul sapping big law was. I had no idea that I would lose myself for years. This former waitress and high school dropout would hide herself in a office dressed in a three piece suit. But then, slowly, I would return and find myself through poetry. My early poems snatched pieces of fragmented memory and put them on a page. Many of the poems turned into stories.
I define success much differently now. I define a successful lawyer as one that makes a difference in the world and as a deputy public defender, I am able to make change on the micro level. One person at a time. Every kindness means something to me and the world. Everyday, I see my colleagues fight the good fight. That is success. Success is having time to write, and cuddle with my husband on the weekends, and spend time with my mom and sisters and of course, the shih tzus.
Success is family. I never thought about having children until it was almost too late. But, I have decided that my dream of having children will happen. It will. It has to. Because some things are too vital, too important to forget about. I refuse to put my dreams into a sock drawer to be forgotten.
So, today, of all days, I have the audacity to continue to have a thing called hope. And I hope you do too.
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