Giving Notice

When you are a type-A corporate litigator (what other kind is there after all?) like me, the last thing you want to be considered is a quitter. So instead, when I walked into the office of one of the main partners at my firm this morning, I told him that I was there "to give notice" instead of "to quit." I can admit that I left his office with a dirty streak of masacara trailing down my right cheek, but I am proud of myself for pretty much keeping it together the whole time. The four or five tears that leaked out of my right eye only (not the left - weird, huh?) were just from the relief I felt when this particular partner shut his office door so we could continue the conversation in private and proceeded to commend me for the decision Paul and I are making and talked about how family is absolutely the most important thing. He told me that I am a "great lawyer" and that I do excellent work and should I ever want to practice law again once our kid(s) is/are older that I will have no problem getting back into it because, according to him, I have what it takes to be a great litigator. (Sorry if I sound like I am tooting my own horn - I am just trying to record some of this encouragement as fuel for the future when I may feel some hesitation at picking up my career as a lawyer again after some time off while our children are young.)

I don't think that this blog is the right place to go into all of the details or rationale behind my departure, so I won't (sorry FB friends who want all the sordid details). But the gist of it is that Paul and I don't feel right about both of us working at big firms full-time with Clara in daycare for the bulk of her waking hours. And work has been unbearable for the last few months anyway and I feel differently about the kind of law practice I am in now from how I felt when I was looking for a summer associate position at a big firm back in 2008.

So for now, I am looking forward to being able to stay home with our Clara-girl and not having to drop her off at daycare every morning. I'm looking forward to actually cooking dinners again instead of consuming yet another frozen pizza or picking up Taco Bell after work. I am pretty sure that Paul is looking forward to having his (mostly) sane wife back who doesn't break down at least once a week in great wracking sobs where she can barely get out the words "I ... can't ... do ... this ... sob, sob, sob ... anymore!! ... wail, wail, wail" after getting not enough sleep and only a handful of minutes with her little girl for a couple of days in a row. (Yes, I hate to admit it, but it has been that bad on multiple occasions).   I look forward to blogging more than once every couple of weeks.  (Can you believe it was two weeks ago that I last posted?!  Shame on me

We are very thankful that Paul has such a good job and I am so grateful that he works hard to make it possible for me to stay home with our cute kiddo. We are going to have to be a LOT more careful about sticking to our budget (historically not one of our strengths) and we aren't going to be traveling anywhere super-exotic in the foreseeable future because we won't have nearly the disposable income that we are used to, but we feel strongly that this is the best decision for us and for our family.

So yay for quitters notice-givers!  I am feeling crazy amounts of relief tonight, even as my blackberry has been pinging me once every ten minutes for the last couple of hours.  I will not miss that annoying little beep and red flashing light, that is for sure!