Bye bye, Work

Today marks the first day of the next phase in my life.  Last week I said "good-bye" to work, said "good-bye" to Fort Lee, said "good-bye" to my crazy clients, and said "good-bye" to being an attorney for the next few years.  Here's a picture of my office as I walked out the door for the very last time...

I thought it would be harder to leave. The people I will miss dearly, there is no argument there.  I made it through my farewell speech without getting super emotional this time.  A huge accomplishment for me being that I cannot seem to say "farewell" to people I care about without balling my eyes out these days.  I blame the hormones and emotions that result from having children.  I am not going to lie, it is good to walk away from the stress of the job.  That aside, being a legal assistance attorney was a growing experience for me.  There are not too many jobs out there where you can feel that you are helping people every day.  I learned depths about the Army and its Soldiers, and saw deep into the facets of army life and how difficult it can be on American families.  These Soldiers truly do sacrifice so much to serve our country, and I am not sure many Americans realize just how great that sacrifice can be.

During my tenure at Fort Lee I saw amazing clients, and I'm happy to say I successfully helped several clients solve some problems they could not have done on their own. Many of them touched my heart with their stories, and broke my heart with others.  There are also all the endless "crazy" issues and clients.  We used to say we'd have endless years of stories for cocktail parties because most of the stories you just can't make up, and I am NOT kidding.  Real people keep life VERY interesting.  Winning the negotiations for clients could certainly be rewarding. The most rewarding feeling, though, is when someone comes into your office with a life-altering problem and even though you haven't got a clue how to help them, they leave your office thanking you like you just moved mountains and saved the world.  It's times such as these that it dawned on me how important the work that I did truly could be to someone.  

When I started this job as a new mom almost 2 years ago, I never imagined how it would shape and affect me.  I am thankful that I had the opportunity to provide legal assistance to Soldiers.  If I never do another divorce for a client again though, it'll be too soon!  This girl is ready to climb back to her roots and dive into helping the environment again and leaving the domestic relations law issues to those that love the drama that comes along with it.

Here's to a new phase in my life. There are possibilities in the works for what comes next, and I promise to tell all once these things form into more concrete plans.  Here's a picture of sweet lil r on his last commute home from daycare.  That child care facility was so amazing I've saved it for a blog post of its own!