I am a changed man. I have been "working on a post" for months, but the work has been scrapped. Feelings have been mulled over, insights have been gleaned, lost, and gleaned once more. My life has changed.
I am a changed man.
Since my last post, I have made some of my life's biggest accomplishments and endured some of my life's biggest trials. The accomplishments are mostly career-oriented, and they have to do with being a lawyer, currently in my third position, and walking bravely down a path I have feared for a long time. I am not supposed to be a lawyer forever; I know that. The practice of law is black-and-white, it is formulaic, and it is notable in its specificity. Artistic expression is not usually the friend of a lawyer. To practice law, I put the artist in me on a shelf in my heart, where he sits--quietly, patiently--waiting for me to feed him the fruit of love: music. To practice law, I wear a suit of armor, protecting my feelings, projecting my prowess, and repressing important parts of myself.
I don't mean to say that practicing law is misery; it isn't. I have fun at my current job. I work hard, and I laugh hard. I work long hours, take long train rides, write long briefs, and I fill myself with knowledge I couldn't find anywhere else. I am grateful for the law, because it has brought me to this point in my life. There are tools in my toolbox that are only there because I am a lawyer. Those tools will be with me forever. Moreover, being a lawyer has helped me encounter people in this world who I would likely have never seen elsewhere, and I love people. Being a lawyer pays my bills. Being a lawyer gives me a career I can talk about with strangers. But I am not supposed to be a lawyer forever. I am supposed to use music in my life and my profession. Music is the thing that wakes me up in the morning--literally and figuratively. Music gently lays my head to rest at night. Music is my life's passion and my heart's voice.
Music is what I will do forever.
Almost six months ago, while on my way to court, I severely broke (and left wrist) my back by falling down the subway steps. My broken back is still an issue, and it will be with me forever. I have surgery coming up to potentially fix the latent, chronic pain that I feel at all times, but I will always carry with me the increased likelihood of reinjuring my poor spine. I laugh now when I think about my surgeon coming in after reviewing my scans, a mere week after my accident. He remarked, off-handedly, that I had "pulverized" my L2 vertebrate. At the time that word knocked the wind out of me, and understandably so. In a matter of seconds, I went from a chubby, young lawyer, stuck in a dead-end associate position, running around New York City like a crazy person, making 5 court appearances per day, to a chubby, young lawyer, stuck in a dead-end associate position, who was crippled. I couldn't shower, I couldn't walk, I couldn't wipe my own ass. My entire world changed in a split second. It is a funny coincidence that I write on this blog, again, about my world changing. When last I wrote a post like this, my dad had just gotten diagnosed with what turned out to be terminal cancer. Yet again, my world view shifted, my eyes grew wide, and I surrendered to the inevitability of my circumstances. Where my father's diagnosis left me emotionally crippled, my back break left me physically crippled.
As if to offset the tragedy of my injury, my dear friends allowed me to stay with them for the two weeks proceeding after my fall. I slept on the couch of two of the most wonderful human beings who I know. During the day, they would sit with me, talk with me, let me rest, reassure me, and advocate on my behalf with medical professionals. I was shown love in every way that I could imagine. Hell, at one point, one of my closest friends had to literally wash me in the shower. (As an aside: true friendship might be when somebody says to you "can you lift your balls, please? I need to clean them.") Despite the beautiful showings of compassion around me, I sunk into a deep and dark depression. It took months before that same close friend had the compassion and courage to tell me that I needed therapy. She was right, of course. Thankfully, my therapist, Bob, is only ever a phone call away. He got me back on the right path, gave me some new tools, some old insights, and a healthy dose of reality. But through breaking my back, I really broke my "self," and I used the opportunity to rebuild the "me" who I had lost.
What I found when I began the painful, and still incomplete, process of rebuilding is that I want music in my life again. My career should fulfill me, because I am a workaholic. When I am at a job, I will stay until it is complete. I work long hours at my current firm not because I have been directed to stay (although it is strongly encouraged), but because there is work to be done, and it is mine to do. If I am to spend most of my life at a job, that job needs to be my passion and at least part of my life's fulfillment. Thus, I am not supposed to be a lawyer forever.
I am not completely positive on what path music will lay before me, as I write today, but I am entirely assured that music is the key to my future. I happen to have the great gift of close friends and loved ones surrounding me who understand that my soul resonates in music, so no matter the course I take from here, I will never be far from a supportive word or needed hug. Regardless, music is my future, and so is writing. I could, but won't, count the number of times I've made some grand pronouncement on this blog regarding my new-found passion for filling it with my own musings, but this time it is different. The quote that titles this entry is from the recently departed Maya Angelou , whose passing has greatly affected us all, including me. I know that music is my path because it satisfies me to know it, and that satisfaction grows as I continue to emotionally accept music back into my life. As I accept music, so to do I accept writing about it. Thus, writing on this blog satisfies me anew, as well. Writing here is "right." Expressing myself in writing is "right." And so this blog has found new life, just as its author has, in the rebuilding of what was broken. Music and writing are back for me, and it's right.
Right will satisfy you.
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