Responsibility

Can't live life with it --- can't live life without it. I blog generally when I have things on my mind and I don't have a time or place or space to express them to. Unfortunately --- considering that I lack the type of friends who pick up my phone calls in New York (which still makes me wonder whether I continue to expect too much from friendships or whether people are really my friends at all -- especially cause they never seem to have a need to call me) ----

My latest schtick which if I stop you in the street and nail you down and you take the time to my incessant rambling is: responsibility --- how i love it and hate it.

My new clincial life makes me feel like a paralegal. Not there is anything wrong with being a paralegal BUT through my work last year in a clinic and the summer experience, I took on enormous responsibilities. And through the waterfall of praise I am still getting from certain folks in Texas ---- I am GOOD at what I do, and I know now how to do it all on my itty bitty self. I kept trying to defer to people, and they kept urging me to trust myself, trust my strategy thinking, trust the product of my work. And now its like being demoted. I have no say......

So here's the thing -- when you have such a high level of responsibility and people relying on you --- its a LOT harder to have a personal life. And you have to do it all on your own --- which is super-intimidating. The amount of responsibility I HAD over the past year has made me want to cry, cause I got never take a deep breath and stop... I burnt out.

BUT having no real responsibility makes me sad, it makes me apathetic, it makes me angry.

And I can't tell if all the praise has made me too cocky -- but its like WEIRD to be propsoing this insane project fellowship where i will be responsibile for SO MUCH MORE, just one short year from now and then to be doing work -- and its not the nature of the work-- i have no problem doing adminstrative details -- that's part of my life as a lawyer. But to not feel any ownership over your work, to be a grunt person on a path that is already paved behind and before you .... well its just BORING. I am feeling egotistical, like it's beneath me --- and why oh god why do I want more repsonisbility? SHould I revel in the simplicity of the work? Shouldn't I be thankful I ahve such a minimal role and can fade into the background? This means MORE OF A PERSONAL LIFE, right?

But when you don't have a personal life, like friends who answer the phone when you call them, that is fulfilling and you don't have work that makes you feel like you matter... then what do you have?

I am happy ---- I listen to my new nani ipod and walk down the street listening to Soni de Nahkre and dance along and I sit in Spanish class and try and I go to yoga and hard core and my body hurts and I mended some relationships that had gone sour so school is not nearly so difficult of an environment....

But in some ways, I still sting from fear and feeling of deep dissatsifaction...

God help me, if only someone would take an interest in dating me or something or anything perhaps i wouldn't look to my work/school or friendships for engagement --- or I could go back to (and rely on) --- time with myself