Ritual Union

I travel for the glam and the gore
Reinventing yourself is such a big American phenomenon. I think retracing yourself should be as well. Perhaps you'll think I am overexaggerating, but I left a life here. I just abandoned it and started over. I have a habit of doing this. Thanks to this habit, I have stories that belong in a novel; I have friends all over the world, I have pictures worth 1000 words and I have scattered pieces of my heart in many places. Of course, I stuffed much of my Madrid experience into my heart and I always carry it with me.
I feel compelled to be up to my old habits, to go to all my favorite watering holes, and to love Madrid in the precise way I learned to love it. Unlike other times I've sought solace and refuge in the European continent, I didn't run from something this time, I ran TO it. However, I did not come to be transported back to being 22. I came to bridge my life now with my life then, and to make them one. This is proving very challenging- emotionally and physically. It's not fun to be on the Madrid time schedule and go to sleep at six in the morning then sit in a law school classroom three hours later. It's also proving a true test of the timber of my heart, to reminisce and to so clearly visualize the different turns and decisions I could have so easily made in a different direction.
This is not a post about regrets, but one about habits. "Ritual unions have got me in trouble again. I was wondering, of the white dress, and a mistress, a spirit holding my hand." (Little Dragon) This is a series of thoughts and fears about reaching into the future and into the past simultaneously. About redefining. About growth.

Traveling and globe wandering to the absurd extent that I have  boasts a lot of glamour. Let me remind you, in 2013 I lived for four months in Africa and four months in London. In 2013, my feet stepped on the sovereign ground of THIRTEEN nations. Oooh, you swoon, sitting at your desk. 
But there is also gore. 
It has immense challenges. 
I won't conflate such a discussion in this post for fear of you incorrectly thinking that I am ungrateful, or trying to make a statement that travel is not "all it's chalked up to be." Travel, in fact, is so much MORE than any one chalks it up to be, that it is a gift that keeps giving, keeps challenging, keeps pouring out blessings.
This harvest of blessings is hard on my heart.

Learning to strike the balance between roots and branches, yet how to mold my own past self with a new future self in order to be one content mono-polar human really has me pensive (and playing this song on repeat). 

Leap and the net will appear

“How can you sleep at a time like this? Unless the dreamer is the real you.

Listen to your voice, the one that tells you to taste past the tip of your tongue.

Leap and the net will appear

I don’t wanna wake before the dream is over

I’m gonna make it mine

Yes, I wanna own it.

I’m gonna make it mine.

I keep my life on a heavy rotation, requesting that its lifting you up, up, up and away and over to a table at the gratitude café.”

-Jason Mraz, Make it Mine

Driving on my gorgeous commute down PCH with the Pacific ocean in my left lane this morning, I had a realization. When people ask me what law school taught me, what I really learned, of course I can answer with torts or civil procedure or how to brief a case. But what it’s really taught me is how to get past something so huge that you never thought you could accomplish. There have been so many moments in the last year and a half where I’ve been nearly completely crippled by the recurring thought, “I cannot do this.” When not only could I do it, but I did.

This isn’t a post about all the spectacular things that I’ve managed to accomplish, but instead about what YOU can accomplish. For those moments when you think there is no clarity for the future, when you think that there’s no way something is going to work out, that you are completely incapable of doing what you’ve been asked to do, you are wrong.

As a few of you know, last semester left me feeling deflated, worked to death and quite unhappy despite an abnormal showering of blessings and joy. So, I decided to do something to fix it. I was annoyed at how things were going to work out, and with a lot of support from great people, good ole fashioned prayer, and a miracle of communication, the new plan is 1000 times better than the old plan. As a dear friend of mine reminded me a few days ago, it’s never a good idea to fall in love with your plan. Keeping that in mind, let me tell you, I am really in love with this plan.

I’ve accepted a job for June in Los Angeles working in legal aid, which is an area of the law I’m very passionate about. There are hundreds of thousands of people in Los Angeles who need simple, quick advice from an attorney and who cannot afford it. I’ll be helping ensure they have the opportunity to speak to an attorney for free, while also learning a little bit about practically every area of the law. I’m thrilled. It’s through an organization I’ve been volunteering with for about a year, and I know I have a lot to learn from those who have dedicated their careers to those in great need. As you may remember, I had planned on working for the Los Angeles District Attorney, and I am still doing that, but now in the fall.

What about July, you ask? Ah, now, here’s the big news. I’ve been accepted to a program in Madrid. Yep, the same Madrid that I’m madly in love with. Spain. A third (or sixth?) home. I’ll be taking classes for credit on European Union human rights and international law. I’ll get enough credits to hopefully be part time my last semester of school, which will give me even more time to job hunt.

I am sitting proudly at the gratitude café, and can’t wait for all the exciting things that lie ahead for the summer!

Leap and the net will appear.