Recently, I traveled out of state with my litigation team, and I returned home just in time to celebrate my birthday. As a birthday gift, my daughter upgraded the return flight that my office had booked for me.
Her thoughtful gesture made the trip home a lot more pleasant than my typical work travel. Priority boarding. Roomier seating. It reminded me of a pre-9/11 flight experience – back before heightened security protocols, cramped seating, and itemized charges for every amenity became the norm.
As I relaxed into my seat in A6, sipping my complimentary soda before many of my fellow passengers had even boarded, I wondered why I hadn’t listened to my digital nomad, millennial daughter when she had advised me that I really should upgrade domestic flights as a general rule. For the cost of two checked bags, I could alleviate travel stress and get quite a few perks. Again, my well-educated and well-traveled daughter has become my teacher. This is hardly surprising since she has seen more of the world before age 30 than I ever will.
Just like that, on my comfy plane ride, I felt those familiar pangs of regret for my phantom life, the life that might have been, a life where I might have attained a doctorate and a working knowledge of all seven continents in time to make one of those 40 Leaders under 40 lists.
Instead, nearly all my major accomplishments have been chronologically delayed.
Until I was in my thirties, my life was proscribed by the restrictive tenets of my family’s Jehovah’s Witness religion. My family was devout, and the restrictive tenets of the faith fit me — an outspoken, nerdy Black girl — as uncomfortably as a turtleneck two sizes too small. Jehovah’s Witnesses’ children are strongly discouraged from playing sports, from socializing with non-Witnesses, from attending college. When I graduated high school, I was admonished that no devout Witness would seek higher secular education. Career ambition was indicative of a lack of faith and any career that might place a woman in a role of oversight over a man was especially verboten.
As a result, when my high school classmates were registering for college classes, applying for summer internships, and starting meaningful careers, I was working odd jobs and spending 90 hours or more monthly in door-to-door proselytizing.
After leaving my parents’ religion and deconstructing my belief system, it took time for me to even recall the educational and career goals that I had suppressed. As a result:
· I did not complete my undergraduate degree until age 36.
· I graduated law school, passed the bar, and began to practice law at 40.
· I published my first novel at 53.
I have had remarkable privileges and for these privileges I have enormous gratitude. That does not, however, negate the disconnect between my own experiences and those of my classmates and work colleagues.
For instance, in college, my classmates would roll out of their dorm room, grab a coffee, and stroll across campus to a morning Feminist or Multicultural Literature class still clad in the oversized shirt and sweats that they had slept in. I, on the other hand, had to get my daughter dressed for school, fix breakfast and check homework (hers and mine), take her to school, and battle traffic to find a rare parking spot on campus before running to class. After class, I had to zip to my job, then pick up my child, plan dinner, and finish a load or two of laundry before starting on my assigned reading or research paper for class.
Law school presented the same challenge. Reading and briefing caselaw, studying for exams, and landing summer internships had to be juxtaposed against the demands of parenting and adulting.
Even now, after practicing law for more than a decade, it’s difficult not to wonder: What if I had started college at 18, if I had gotten to study abroad, or to live in a dorm or apartment with roommates: would I be more confident; would I have better connections; would I now be wealthier; would I still battle the recurring burden of imposter syndrome? Will it always be my fate to be a 21st century Sisyphus pushing my heavy load uphill only to arrive and learn that others took an easier route and beat me to the summit?
Am I doomed to be a relay racer handed the baton to begin my lap when the race was nearly complete? Or is the goal simply to push my rock atop my hill? Should my success be measured by my journey, by how far I have had to crawl to get atop that hill or to finish the race at all?
In the immortal words of Don Henley, “If I could only stop my mind…. from worrying about so much wasted time.”
Maybe, the lesson is to revel in the opportunity to attain a law degree and a career that allows me to provide for my children; the satisfaction of having a career in public interest law that marries my values to my work; and the added joy of getting to hone my creative outlets and even to find a publisher for my novel.
Maybe I should try very hard to enjoy my half full glass, settle into my roomier airplane seat, and enjoy the view from my window.
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