I have a temper.  Let’s just get that out there.  It’s one of the things I’ve inherited from my father… And to be quite honest, I’ve never really had a problem with that.  I’m feisty.  And sometimes, a girl needs that.  A little sass can go a long way.

But it’s a much more adorable characteristic when you’re a single girl, independent and taking on people who are just waiting to underestimate you.  When you’re married to a sweet and adoring person who is trying his best… Less adorable.  When you’re frustrated with where your own decisions have landed you, it just makes you combustible.

I’m dramatic. I have a huge imagination.  I’ve been a writer since I had the means to record anything on paper… By the time I was 8 I had notebooks full of stories stacked up in my closet.  I had a number of people tell me that if I wanted to be a novelist, getting background in other things was the best idea… The degree wouldn’t make someone publish my book.  What I channelled in to my characters and plots would.  So I studied Psychology, because I love that people can be so similar and so different at the same time.  And I studied Child Development and Family Studies, because I wanted to better understand how people were shaped by the things around them.  And the whole time, I was writing… After college I took a full year off just to write.

How did I end up in law school? It’s a question I ask myself every day. I have no good answer.

I understand that what I’m doing accomplishes the same goal as my studies in college did to a point… I’m learning about something that so many writers want to be able to write about.  Clients give me such insight into lives I’ve never experienced and struggles I’ve never personally faced.

It’s the fact I don’t have time to invest in my writing… my outlet is gone.  And the more I try, the more I get frustrated that there just aren’t enough hours in the day.  There weren’t in the beginning when I was single, and there’s even fewer now that I’m married.  And sometimes, the draining day to day leaves me with inspiration only to sleep.

Couple that with the fact that even after three years, these cities feel like that nice guy you have a decent first date with.  You’re like, sure, I’ll give it another shot.  And eventually you just get stuck. There’s never anything bad enough to make you flip your world upside down and walk away, but you almost wish it would happen.  And then just when you’re ready to walk away, there’s a glimmer of hope, but it never amounts to anything.  You never fall in love.  I’m so not in love with this place. And I came here right from my first love, a city that I adored completely.

My husband’s friends are here.  After three years, my friends are scattered and fading because I don’t have time to visit them or keep in touch the way I want to… And law school is about to end, and the few friends I adore will retreat, again, to all ends of the country.  It’s a lonely place to be, even when you never have time to be alone.

And sometimes that weight of it all, it’s just too much.  Sometimes the professors who you swear have no soul, and the relentless high-school drama, and the endless readings on corporate greed, and the extra-curriculars that you know will look amazing on your resume but that take up every last second you have so you don’t even have time to grocery shop, much less come home for dinner… It pushes me to the edge.

Which means that when my husband, with all of his good intentions and bad listening skills, ruined my night off last night, I might have snapped.  I might have thrown a handful of Apple Cinnamon Cheerios. And slammed the door a few times.  And yelled… Yup. I did. As if I were four. I’m not proud of it.  And if I were my husband, I would be a lot less forgiving.  But he is. Which almost makes it worse.

Sometimes, a girl just needs to vent. And apologize. An then regroup by making a spreadsheet to balance everything she needs to accomplish in the remaining 79 days.  And then cross her fingers that what comes next makes her less ready to fling cereal across her bedroom.  Or that she develops better self control.