Where I Am

Although I really don't post anymore, I felt that the fact that this blog has existed through six years of my life and that through that time, I kept it up--some years very consistently, others not so much--makes it the right place to once again return at this juncture in my life.

This blog has seen me through my most vulnerable years in college. Now it has been around for my three years of law school. That's right, I'm done. In a few weeks, I will officially have graduated from Harvard Law, and in the fall, I'll be a real practicing attorney at a DC law firm. I updated my profile already because I'm not really a law student anymore, and hey, I think I get to jump the gun a little bit, because I'm excited and I am very, very happy.

In the past year, I have not written almost at all, and I have read dramatically fewer books. I mean, I still read a lot of fiction in comparison most people I'm around (e.g. law students and lawyers). For some reason, it's not a profession where a lot of people enjoy reading novels.

I think I just want to leave a few thoughts re myself (because I'm cool and talk about myself a lot) and my choices in life and writing, for anyone who happens to stumble by in the future:

I have always loved writing, but at no real point in my life (except maybe when I was eight) did I consider doing it full time as a career. It was very deliberate, and I have continuously been happy with that decision. I hope that you people who are aspiring writers know that you do not need to be full time to be a writer. You can write books, and you can have a day job. I will admit that the fact that I chose an extremely time-intensive career very likely means that I am temporarily saying goodbye to my life as a writer. I think if I REALLY REALLY wanted to keep writing while lawyering, I could do it. Like maybe only a couple hundred words a week, but I could make that goal. But I know that I will not be doing that.

The thing is, I'm not inclined to write at the moment and I haven't been inclined for a while. And I think that is okay. I don't think my interest in writing was "a phase" and that I have now "grown out of it." Before I started intensively writing in college, the few years before, I had essentially stopped writing. I specifically remember that I began writing again after finishing the Percy Jackson series in January of 2009. I am going dormant again. To be frank, I have been dormant for a while already. I know, I am confident, that one day--it may be a long time in the future--I will begin writing again. It's in my bones, it's in my blood. I stop, but I always come back.

The great thing is, I am so lucky, guys. I knew I was going to have a non-novelist day job, and that happens to be being a lawyer. Everyone has definitely heard horrible things about lawyers as people and lawyering as a career. But you know what? I LOVE the law. From what I've experienced in the field, I will like practicing. I am so passionate about my subject area (telecom). I do not, ever, not for an ounce, not for a second, feel like scaling back on writing for my time-consuming day job as a lawyer is a sacrifice.

I have done some incredibly cool things because I am going to be a lawyer. In the past three years, I've worked in government (in a federal agency and for a U.S. senator), in the private sector, and for a non-profit. I have enjoyed all of those positions immensely. I am so optimistic about my career. Maybe it is immodest to say, but I am. I feel privileged to have found something I so thoroughly adore.

And I fell in love with a wonderful guy, and suddenly, all those stories I wrote about people falling in love were no longer words on a page, but the raw, wonderful, real parts of life that inspire those stories. As if before, when I read stories about love, it was grayscale, and now when I read, I see all the colors.

Do I feel like I wasted all my time writing all those years? Absolutely not. Writing brought me out of the dumps at the worst of times, it made me feel like I had some calling, and it was and continues to be a form of emotional catharsis. It is an almost mystical experience. I think, no matter if I ever get published, writing will always be something special for me. And I hope for all you writers out there, that you feel it is something special, even if you do not ever publish a single thing. It has enriched my life in a way that I cannot replicate by any other method.

I really look forward to one day when I start writing again. I do. Maybe it will be this summer, when I'm studying for the bar and in desperate need of an outlet. Maybe it will be five years from now. I don't know. But I can tell you, I can't wait to see what that next story will be.

If this all reads like a goodbye, it is absolutely not. I'm starting a new chapter in my life, and it felt like the right thing to do, to reflect on where I am today. I have said before, I am sporadically inclined to post at times, and I never know when they will be. As for now, this blog is a fascinating record of how I have lived, loved, written, and felt in the years of my adult life so far. Like writing, I may stop and disappear for a while, but I will always come back.

Until then, life continues to be a marvelous adventure, for all its ups and downs.

Keep writing.



Please believe that things are good with me, and even when they're not, they will be soon enough. And I will believe the same about you.

--The Perks of Being A Wallflower