loyalty comes at the worst possible time...

the countdown has started at work.

the weekend of july 15th i head to lovely ontario to find an apartment, tour my (my!) school, meet some professors lurking around.

i'm thinking about leaving the law firm around late-ish august.

naturally, now is the only time that i have ever, ever felt guilty for leaving a job. i've worked since the tender age of 15. in fact, i was so eager to work i got TWO jobs at 15. the first job - hostess at perkins. yeah, not so much. much to the manager's chagrin, i just stopped showing up for work. i hated that job, i was extremely frightened of the old, wrinkled waitresses who reeked of smoke and whose hands trembled. i can still hear his voice on the phone, exasperated, "i don't care that you quit, i just need you to tell me these things." sorry, perkins dude. the second job - dissembling computers for recycling. that was fantastic. the recycling plant consisted of me, some jaded hipster guys who read foucault and introduced me to things i'd never thought about (like pinups and penis piercings. obviously, i was way more fascinated by the pinups. go figure.), and juvenile delinquents court-ordered to do community service who totally hated me. i just liked ripping things apart and throwing shit around in bins. for a 15 year old, there are few finer things.

but i digress. my previous job was horrid. i was terribly sick with grave's disease but didn't know it, and thought i was just having a mental breakdown. not so fun. this job started along the same vein. i was still sick (pre-radiation), and the work was looking to be about the same thing - gloried file clerk.

but now, oh, now it's morphed into a lovely research gig where i learn about industries and companies and people and finances and write research reports for attorneys. that sounded somewhat dull, didn't it? i like it anyway. i like being asked by smart people, 'hey, what is X all about? what can you tell me about it?" then finding out all about it and defending my research. i like making senior partners in the firm acknowlege that i'm smart, that i'm thorough, that i know what i'm doing. i like arguing with litigators. i like using my brain and then pushing people around. really, what's better?

i wouldn't feel so badly, however, if i didn't already know that i'm leaving when my supervisor is all worked into a lather about my preggers coworker/friend who'll be popping out her baby in a few months. i know that i'm going to leave them short. i know they've dumped a shitload of training into my brain, and they're encouraging me to get my mba. they were really good to me when i needed to cut back my hours after my second dose of radiation.

i guess i just need to accept that i can't please them, that my loyalty is ultimately to myself. maybe this is all a sign that society has done a fantastic job of molding me into the type of woman who wants to please everyone, who doesn't want to make anyone mad, who doesn't like to upset her superiors. fuck that, i say! i'm going to grad school. i'm going to be a professor. fuck, i hope to be the kind of professor who has the reputation for being super fucking tough and super fucking smart.

now if i could only shake the residual guilt...

sigh.