LSAT

It's inevitable that I'm going back to school. It's been on my list of things to do for awhile, but not good timing. I have two small children. Granted, my two small children are barreling quickly towards elementary school faster than I can blink.

When I graduated from Bible college in 2000, I had a strong sense of ethics and right and wrong. My dream job would actually be a court judge. Not that I'm into astrology, but a few of my au pairs pointed out to me that I AM a libra which is under the sign of the scales and known for balance. Indeed, that is how I would describe myself. What I've also recently learned is that we're not known for being magnets for money and we tend to piss off a good collection of other signs. Ha!

I thought about the money thing, but being that I believe in fairness I can't seem to leave things uneven and so I tend to give more than I take. I can't believe this is because I was born under a particular star, but I do know that it is my personality. I also have an extreme sense of justice.

Any career test I've ever taken has told me I should be in marketing or journalism and the number one career for me is Law.

I've never wanted to be in law. I didn't have time for it after college. Instead I ended up in contracts and was amazing at it selling 3 times my quota by using the boundaries set forth by my company. Then I moved to gift planning and understanding estate taxes and annuities and from there my experiences led me into Risk Management and the depths of corporate law from an insurance agents perspective. Now I work with au pairs understanding US Department of State program guidelines, interviewing host families, conducting orientations, and on rare occasions mediating which it turns out I...like. That's four jobs that I've done all in Account Management that have fallen with in understanding specific laws and guidelines and that's what I'm best at.

The downside of going to law school is that people have told me I might not get a job, but that's hard to believe that making myself better at what I've already been doing would make me less employable.

Three years of full time school is daunting to me, but I'm looking at fall of 2010 when Reagan is 3 and in preschool.

As soon as I mentioned law, I ran into a few lawyers that were very supportive since I have a power packed, to the point, argumentative, intelligent personality. Some were surprised when I said I want to do divorce and family law, but not so surprised when I mentioned I would like to advocate for children and it seems a natural step having Biblical Studies and also Family Ministries which includes psychology.

As I've considered all of my options, this keeps pulling me in.

Growing up I wanted to be a wife and a mother and I spent most of my teen years preparing for that. It was all I wanted. Imagine my surprise to graduate from college and embark on a career and a successful one at that. It wasn't what I anticipated. I had dreamed of going to India or Kazakhstan instead I ended up in Redmond, WA. I think sometimes we'll move somewhere else, but there isn't anywhere else I'd rather be. It seems this is home. Instead of staying home with my kids and joining mom groups for the last 5 years, I ended up working from home and...liking it.

I struggle with not fitting into the moms groups or the girls' night out or trying to figure out where I fit socially, but the older I get and the more I understand myself the more I realize I'm not a team player and not a good girlfriend. I'm an overly productive, highly energetic, extremely introverted, but outgoing person who will always analyze and research and think.

One of my au pairs met with me this week and said she's heard when you go home you've changed so much but everyone else is the same. I told her, it's not just home - it's everywhere. You've gone to a different country, learned a different language, lived with a different family. You become flexible, adaptable, you grow and the world becomes smaller and you feel like you could go anywhere and do anything. Then people who haven't done it at all look at you like you're insane. She said, "oh, so it's not just me?"

No. It's not just when you leave the program either, it's for the rest of your life. It's probably why I navigate to internationals who have come here from somewhere else because I know the world isn't so small to them and leaving the country to visit a friend for a few months wouldn't indicate your marriage is falling apart - it's a way of life.

It seems that my life isn't going to be simple and I'm not going to get along with people who live inside a small radius intellectually, mentally, and physically. It frustrates the snot out of me and at the same time it's an incredible thing to know the world. Maybe, just maybe by living with such an open mind I might bring people together or encourage people to do things they never thought they could.

It's a level of living in a comfort zone that I left a long time ago and I'm not going back. I simply can't. I thought my life would be so easy, so unadorned, so uncomplicated. Now I realize that from the direction I've already taken I might as well head on to the next step. I write that and take a deep breath realizing how much I'm leaving behind, but also moving forward to what's ahead. It's amazing what I would define as entangling or holding me back. On the other hand, it's surprising to me who I've found to me my greatest supporters in the last few years and who will continue to be.