2022 Reflection; 2023 Anticipation

Helloooo 2023! 2022 was a big year for us. I have a lot of thoughts about it that are all jumbling around in my head and heart. This time last year I had pulled myself together and was interviewing with law firms, increasingly certain that was the next path I wanted to take and increasingly anxious that I might once again reach for something that wouldn't work out.

But it did! I told my boss at the SEC I was leaving in late January, packed up my office with James and the kids on February 4, and started at the firm on February 21.

We celebrated and cheered and put new childcare and household support systems in place. James and I talked a lot, with each other and with the kids, about how our roles would shift and evolve. I commuted 2+ hours round-trip for 8 weeks, which was 5 weeks longer than I needed to know in my heart that I couldn't commute like that forever. We talked, we decided to move, and we cleaned up, decluttered, and listed our house. It was a busy Spring.

We couldn't buy a house in Dallas until we sold our house in Fort Worth and the market was too insane to link the sales together. I found us a rental house in the neighborhood we wanted that would allow our three kids and three pets and we packed boxes for storage and boxes for renting. I worked and traveled and spoke and wrote and worked to build my professional network. James coached and carpooled and held down the house. The kids texted and called and felt all their feelings about our move and the earthquake I'd set off in their lives already that year. James worked to wind down his swim team, establish a manager for the swim lessons, and find a new pool in Dallas where he could train.

We moved. I said goodbye to friends I worked so hard to make, to the community I built for myself slowly, genuinely, essentially over the years. I miss it very much.

I kept working, kept traveling, kept writing, kept speaking, kept opening new matters and absolutely loving private practice. Advising clients on SEC-related issues feels like the best parts of my experience and natural talents put together. I love counseling someone through something difficult. I love working with clients looking to improve processes and procedures. I love navigating what could feel like a crisis and making it feel more manageable, or at least more understood. I love re-connecting with people I've met from every part of my life so far, seeing how so many have thrived and are in incredible positions of power and authority, and helping them or their organizations. I felt, and still feel, incredibly lucky to have been able to seize the opportunity I was given. I've never loved being a lawyer more.

Summer came and we took our big family adventure to Iceland. I came home to 12 days of Covid I only remember half of. The summer was hard, really hard I see now, on the kids. New city, no school yet, no activities, no connections, a rental house, and most of their possessions in storage. Claire's anxiety, ever-present, was worse this year. We were on top of it until we weren't. The day Claire called me sobbing while I was in NYC with a client, terrified because of thoughts she couldn't stop having, was my lowest point in 15 years of being a working parent.

Summer got better. We found local counselors and doctors and medicine. We connected, played games, and got ready for school. We house-hunted and found the most perfect home before it was even listed.

School started. It was hard. I put off any travel for a month. The big kids made friends. Cora (eventually) decided she was not, as previously claimed, already too old to make new friends and made some too. Then made more. Landon started swimming and was adopted by an extrovert on the team. Claire settled into a strong and wonderful friend group. Cora played soccer, ran gymnastics competitions at recess, and became co-leader of a whole gaggle of girls.

Fall rolled in. We celebrated 17 years of marriage. We got ready to move, again. We packed and sorted and unpacked and re-sorted, again. We worked with a designer to select a LOT of new furniture for a lot of new rooms. School continued. Landon, the only freshman at the school enrolled in nearly all sophomore classes, learned he might have to study sometimes. Claire ran cross country and broke her foot. She started babysitting and gained so much hard fought ground in conquering her OCD and anxieties. Cora excelled in school, on the soccer field, and on the playground. James kept training, added new remote coaching clients, and monitored the swim school from afar. Backyard pool construction began, we picked out some fun paint colors, and new furniture seemed to arrive weekly. It was chaotic and messy and absolutely feel-it-in-your-bones-wonderful to have a home that felt like ours again. I fell in love with our lake and started every day with a Pilates class or lake-side walk pushing Maggie in her stroller.

We went to Colorado for Thanksgiving. It was wonderful and full of cousins and delicious food. Traditionally, on every drive home from Colorado, we talk about how we can manage to move there as soon as possible. But much as we still love it and want to live there one day, for the first time, James just said, "actually, I think we're good." And we are. For all the hard, we really love Dallas. The kids really love Dallas (well, Cora accepts Dallas). Both big kids have mentioned in their own ways differences they see and feel here and what they like about it. The transition was hard. So much of it was so hard and so lonely, but I think we're all going somewhere - and already are somewhere - that is going to be so good.

The end of the year was a whirlwind. I had a slew of travel that is increasingly paying off in terms of connections and speaking engagements and the delightful feeling of actually knowing people at every event or conference I attend. Landon went a best time in his best event and then dislocated his knee. He's followed all instructions and is healing beautifully (and in time for Districts in 3 weeks). He's learning to drive and my mind explodes each time he gets in the driver's seat of the car. Claire is thriving, loves her room, and sleeps in it every night. Cora started gymnastics and basketball in December; she is loving basketball, has already moved up groups in gymnastics, and is *always* upside-down. James went a best time and qualified for US Nationals for the first time since 2001. We spent Christmas in Houston with grandparents and babies and it was happy and sparkly.

We got back in time for me to have a long-planned and much-anticipated surgery. Possibly more on that later, but I'm recovering well, James is uncomplainingly doing absolutely everything, and I am soaking up the forced couch-rest to do things like go through a year's worth of pictures, watch all of Dan Levy's The Big Brunch (delightful!), and reflect on goals for the year ahead. I'm also doing Dry January, with my sister and her husband, though I really started on December 26. I love a reset, and this one well-timed with the surgery recovery, start of a new year, and a lot of business travel later in the month that will be a good reminder that you don't need a cocktail in hand to socialize.

I turn 40 in February. I don't know that I have any thoughts on that, other than the fact that I tend to move cities right before milestone birthdays which makes it harder to celebrate them. I just booked our flights for a great beachy Spring Break trip that will be my present. But this has been a big year. As I write it out, I'm struck by how much of it really was hard, but I know - from our dinner conversations, from the photo books I still (barely) managed to make and give to the kids at Christmas this year, and from the posts I managed to write - that day-to-day much of it felt so happy and exciting. I'm excited about 2023. No moves, no new schools, and no big changes this year. The last year that will be true for a long time, so hoping we can settle in to what we have here and now, soak up our time together as a family of five, and continue to grow the paths each of us are making for ourselves.

Happiest New Year to you all, thank you for reading along the way.