Moving On

And we meet again. Amazing how it has been over two months since I've been here last. The gaps between entries grow further and further apart. Oh, the joys of employment! Today is Christmas. I'm spending it at home with my parents and my boyfriend and our many, many dogs (five, specifically). The bf left this evening to head back home, so now it's just me and my thoughts. With the new year approaching, it's unsurprising that those thoughts revert to my accomplishments over the past year and where I'm at now as opposed to this time last year. In some ways, I have absolutely grown and bettered myself and my situation, but in other ways I feel like I'm still where I started. I guess it is asking too much for immediate and remarkable change, and, honestly, gradual change is probably easier to handle, though I may not have the patience for it.

I think I've made a decision (wow!). I've decided that once I hit the one year mark of this job, I'm moving back to San Antonio. There is serious doubt as to whether I will continue in the legal world once I move, which is a source of consternation at the moment. I'm trying not to let everything overwhelm me, and to focus on the bottom line. Specifically, by the time May comes around, I'll have been separated from the bf for almost three years. For three years we have been doing the long-term thing, and while I feel that it's been a good test for us, I also feel that, obviously, this cannot continue forever. Some part of me feels like I've been running or exploring for the past few years, and now it's time to return to home. Another part of me feels like I'm doing the typical female thing of forgoing my career to follow a man. But, I tend to be of split mind about a lot of things, so I'm really trying to focus on what I want. And what I want is to be settled - to move on from the student-esque life that the bf and I have maintained long after we have actually been in school. I want a home, I want a relationship where we see each other everyday, and, someday, a family. That ain't happening if I continue to stay away from him.

My moving from San Antonio hasn't been due solely to the fact that I sought employment outside of San Antonio. I had sought opportunities in SA and for some reason none amounted to anything. So, I have been forced to look elsewhere, but perhaps not for naught. In the past few years as an attorney, I've done things I absolutely never thought I could. I've been a litigator - something I vowed I would never do in law school, I've sat first chair in jury trials (even won some!), and I've become a more independent, stronger person. I don't know if I would have done that if I simply stayed in SA under the protective wing of the bf and the security of familiarity. The decision to quit a not completely sucky and very stable job and move away is very unlike me. I've always been taught to make safe, secure, predictable decisions. Quiting one's job and moving in with a boyfriend, albeit a boyfriend of almost eight years, is not a decision I make often. Actually, try never. But one way I look at it is this, this is the first time I really have stepped out on a limb, stepped out of my comfort zone, took a chance at something that everyone else would say I shouldn't. All those types of things. And I feel really good about it. So, go me!