Tortured Poetry

Law School 3L year, 2007

I have so many pictures from the last two weeks as I've been launched back into the real world. It's been so busy it's hard to imagine that only a month ago I still had a uterus. Now I'm back to very much full time hours, multiple great, active cases, two work trips done with NY and DC scheduled for next week, cute Spring outfits ready to go thanks to a recent visit from Bonnie, squezing in walks before work (or after), and not having nearly enough time to blog or finish the TV shows I started. I write all these great posts in my head while I walk along the lake and I never get to write them down. So tonight, while Cora is finishing her "energy efficient house model GT project" to her insane perfectionist standards (I thought I had high standards, then I had Cora and learned that my standards are garbage), I am determined to get this one thought written down.

And that grand, incredible, must-blog-it thought is this: I really like "I Can Do It With a Broken Heart" by Taylor Swift from The Tortured Poets Department.

TTPD is not my favorite album of hers, but I do really like a few of the songs and this is one of them. It just speaks to me. And while I was walking today (after 9.5 hours at the office and before picking up Cora from swimming while James took Claire to the doctor to get a pink eye diagnosis), and listening to it on repeat, I realized why:

'Cause I'm a real tough kid, I can handle my shit
They said, "Babe, you gotta fake it 'til you make it" and I did
Lights, camera, bitch smile, in stilettos for miles
He said he'd love me for all time
But that time was quite short
Breaking down, I hit the floor
All the pieces of me shattered as the crowd was chanting, "MORE"
I was grinning like I'm winning, I was hitting my marks
'Cause I can do it with a broken heart.

This is working mom life to me. Maybe it's all life, but I've experienced most of mine as a working mom and this is it. I am a tough kid. I do handle my shit. Lights, camera, bitch smile now rocks through my head before every Zoom call. I may not wear stilettos much anymore, but there are days when I'm walking out the door in my business clothes and I'm leaving one metaphorical mess or another behind me and it's just that: lights, camera, bitch smile. This is my job, it pays for our life and everything in it, and sometimes you have to walk your stilettos right around an emotional teenager, an annoyed spouse, a sad bulldog, and/or whatever else you know you're going to have to pick right back up when you get home again.

I've been pretty head over heels in love with James since 2001 so the romantic heartbreak I think our goddess Taylor is alluding to doesn't hit with me, but I have absolutely had pieces of me shattered on the floor with my emails chanting MORE. I've been grinning like I'm winning, I've been hitting my marks, and I've been doing with with a broken heart.

I've been in important on-the-record testimony in another city while a child was blowing up my phone, sobbing and terrified, in a full-blown previously unknown mental health crisis. I've had mornings when I have to leave things with James unfinished, both of us annoyed, neither of us able to fix it in the hectic morning rush and hating, absolutely hating, knowing that my marriage, which is the often taken-for-granted absolutely-rock-hard foundation of my life, is shaky and weird and I simply cannot fix it right now. I've missed things: not any big things, but plenty of little ones. I've worked through family drama, personal spirals, health issues, and more. We all do. We can do it with a broken heart.

I love my job. I mean, I wouldn't do it if I didn't both need money and get paid, but I do genuinely like it. I love being a counselor to my clients. I like the statutory certainty of the federal securities law framework combined with the persuasiveness of case law and regulatory interpretation. I like the order of working in my own office, I like spending most of my days reading and writing things, and I like being around other adults pretty much all the time. I love business development- I love speaking and writing in my area of expertise, and I genuinely enjoy making connections with people in the market. But it's hard. The actual work is hard, but FAR more than that is the hard of doing it while the rest of your life is being lived in and around you.

I never want to focus on the negative, and I don't. But I've found it's important when I mentor our younger associates to let them know that yeah, this feels hard because it is. I have missed things. I have had really hard moments where I was a better lawyer than a mom for that short time block, and while it makes me sad, I'm also still certain it was the right thing to do right then. None of us are doing this perfectly. We need to judge in broad strokes, and in my quiet moments of reflection, I do think I'm a good lawyer who serves her clients well, and I do think I'm a good wife and mother to the people who matter the very most to me.

But it's hard. And sometimes you're doing it with a broken heart.

Law Firm Partner Retreat, 2024