My secret

I've been keeping a secret from most of you because I'm a wussy/sissy/pansy who is afraid of being judged by her failures.  

But after last night, I don't feel like I'm going to fail at this.  As a matter of fact, I feel positively revitalized.  It's like I've been living in a lifeless shell formerly known as Michelle for the last five years and have finally busted out.  

During the shell years, I've tried to figure out where that fire I used to have went.  Where was that vivacious, confident, live-life-to-the-fullest and try to never have regrets girl?  

What I finally realized is that I suffocated her.  I didn't suffocate her when I quit law school or when I never went back.  I suffocated her when I let those two facts define me.  I looked in the mirror and all I saw was failure branded on my forehead.  

Working in a law firm constantly reminded me that I had failed.  No matter how many times people complimented my work as a paralegal, I still felt like a failure because being a paralegal means working for people who actually finished school and passed the bar and made something more of themselves.  

Every time someone else left the ranks of the support staff to trot off to law school, it reminded me I had failed.  I beat myself up about it so much that I could not see anything positive about myself.  I started taking all of my flaws and magnifying them until all that was left of me in my mind was the negative.

As it turns out I am not a failure so much as I am much more in tune with myself than I realized.  Because?  I don't want to be a lawyer.  

All this time I've had alone with myself since my husband's schedule has gone all whackadoo has forced me to deal with me after Silas goes to bed.  There's no one else to distract me from myself.  

Therefore, I had to face down that demon - because there is nothing more miserable than being alone 24/7 with a miserable husk of a woman.  

What I remembered is that never in my life have I not put up a fierce battle for something I really wanted.  If I had really wanted to go back to law school, I would not have let anything stand in my way.  Period.  I make things happen when I put my mind to them.  But what I've done since I walked out of that law school for the last time swearing I would return in the fall is make excuse after excuse and create obstacle after obstacle to ensure that I would never go back.  

When I finally admitted to myself that I never should have gone to law school in the first place, I stopped hating myself.  Like, instantly.  But I still wasn't satisfied with the level of education I have attained or content to stay put in my current profession forever (sorry to all the people who I work with and love if you don't relish the idea of me leaving some day!!!  although I very much do want to stay put for the time being -and I plan to continue to give 120% effort :))

So, I started researching graduate schools and the GRE and buying study books for the GRE and flash cards and such.  

Last night after Silas fiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiinally went to sleep (boy did he absolutely have no desire to sleep), I got lost in learning vocabulary words and practicing techniques for taking the GRE, and it felt fantastic.  It felt like  being myself again.  It felt like I had something to look forward to that is going to be mine-all-mine but also benefit my family.

So, now out with my plan to keep this secret from you unless I got accepted to graduate school.  Because - I remembered I'm pretty smart, and I'm very much capable of hard work, and I very much have the ability to get into graduate school, and I'm going to embrace that unless I'm proven wrong - and then we'll have a whole new set of bitter/angry/tearful posts to wade through.

Now we start the vocabulary word of the day.  If you already know these words - I don't care because my vocabulary is not as awesome as I thought it was, and I have to learn them.  Just indulge me. 

Vocabulary word of the day:

Execrable - utterly detestable; abominable; abhorrent.

Ex. sentence: The movie Borat is execrable. (Randi and I hate it even if a gazillion other people love it - and we're usually pretty cool and down to watch all manner of stupid guy movies.  Therefore, I dub it execrable).