It’s the 4th of July. I had good intentions of writing more in June than I did in May. I obviously didn’t succeed on that. I’ve been feeling so overwhelmed that I have kind of just shut down. I have so many things that I need to get done both at work and around the house that I don’t even know where to start. So, I don’t start. I just sleep a lot. It’s not a great coping mechanism because the to-do list doesn’t get any smaller. 

My mother and I are still going to GriefShare every Monday evening. Last night we told the group we felt like all the stress with the business has kept us distracted from the grieving process. They suggested we do another session of GriefShare when our lives are a bit more calm. That’s probably a good idea for me anyway, since I am going to miss the last two sessions when I go on vacation in a couple weeks. 

The first full week in June our paralegal who had been with the firm for sixteen years quit with less than 24 hours’ notice. It was a bit shocking, but probably shouldn’t have been. She had been making a lot of changes in her personal life, and sixteen years is a long time to be in one place. Luckily, our legal assistant stepped up and has done an excellent job filling her shoes and her twin sister is working with us while she is home from college for the summer. It all worked out fine, but it was something I really wished I could have talked to my father about. There had been several points while I worked with my father where he got upset with the paralegal who recently quit without notice. Our other partner and I would always calm him down and convince him we really needed her. So, I wish I could tell my father about everything. It also has put more stress on me and resulted in me having to work extra hours to make sure everything gets done. As I assume is the case with most people who quit without notice, you get in and you find out that person had not been keeping up with their tasks. It was a lot, but it does feel good to be getting things cleaned up. 

I’m also at a point where I have the potential for my career to go three different directions and I really wish my father was here so I could talk to him about the pros and cons of each potential option. More on that in a bit.

Father’s Day was harder than I thought it would be. We never really did anything major for Father’s Day. We usually just had lunch at my parent’s house. In the days leading up to Father’s Day I did a lot of car-crying. I had planned to take my younger two children to Kansas City for the weekend, not realizing it would be Father’s Day, but I was really glad to be gone. I texted my former law partner and my mother’s brother and thanked them for what they have done to step into the fatherly role for me since my father died. My former law partner is in his 70s, but his father died shortly after mine so we were both going through our first Father’s Day without our fathers. Once the day actually got here, I did ok. I was busy doing things with my kids though. I felt bad because the father of my children ended up spending Father’s Day alone because our older kids were at friends’ houses and the younger children were out of town with me. He was understanding of how hard that day was going to be for me though and didn’t complain at all. 

I may have mentioned this in a previous post, but I applied for a corporate in-house counsel position. I can’t remember exactly when I applied, but it was probably late April or early May. When I was in law school an in-house counsel position was my dream job. I had interned at Tyson Foods in their legal department and loved it. Those jobs typically require at least five years’ experience though, so that was not an option right out of law school. Then, I ended up really liking working with my father and I didn’t want to leave him in a bind. So, I didn’t think about the in-house counsel stuff the past seven years. I didn’t hear anything from the company for over a month, so I assumed nothing was going to come of it. Then a week and a half ago I got an email that they wanted to schedule a phone interview for me with HR. Apparently that went ok, because I’m scheduled to interview with the general counsel via zoom tomorrow morning. This position would be a pay cut and winding up my existing business would be a huge headache. I don’t know that they would offer me a job, but I’ve been trying to weigh the pros and cons in case it becomes a real option in the near future. 

There have been talks about potentially merging with a larger firm. They were supposed to vote on whether to move forward with that last week, but I haven’t heard anything yet (admittedly though, I haven’t checked my work email since Friday at around 11:30pm). I haven’t been pestering them because I felt like it gave me a little more time to see if the in-house position may be an option. 

The other thought I had recently was to just power on by myself. I am making really good money. I believe both the in-house position and the merger would result in a significant pay-cut for me. Again, though, this year has been incredibly stressful and put me in the sort of stress-induced hibernation I’ve been living with lately. Also, our probate paralegal told me Friday if the merger doesn’t go through, she’ll need to find another job. We had hoped to move her to the main office if the merger went through because it is much closer to her house. We had already kind of decided that my mother would stay home with the baby. So, now I would have to hire two new people if I was going to keep going on my own. We have not had much luck hiring people in the past and that concept seems incredibly daunting. 

It is nice to have three potential options at play, but the compulsive planner in me is really struggling with all the uncertainty. I don’t know if that’s why I’ve been crying in my car a lot more lately; or if I’m just so stressed that I’m not allowing myself to grieve properly so it keeps creeping up on me. I’m hoping starting to write again and doing the Liturgy of the Hours again will help keep the car crying under control. In the past couple weeks I’ve caught myself in this complete indifference to death. I’m not suicidal, but I would think about the possibility of death and my first thought would be, “I wouldn’t have to go back to work.” I hate feeling like that. I have a husband, four kids, a fifth child on the way, and a grieving mother. My first thought should be what I would miss out on with my family. Hopefully, I will get answers soon that will allow me to refocus and get back to a happier place. I really do love my life, but I feel so much pressure at work that it feels like it is crushing me even when I’m not at the office. 

In more positive news, Baby seems to be healthy and we will find out the gender August 9th. I did have some scares recently with my blood pressure dropping significantly, but I seem to be doing ok this week.