made it, ma. top of the world.

i never called my mother "ma." my dad will occasionally call my grandmother that when he's annoyed with her, but it was never my style. i called her "mom." short, sweet, to the point. there are a lot of things i want these days, first and foremost a job. but today, three years to the day after getting that call, all i really want? well, it's her.

i've been told that she wanted to be a lawyer when she grew up. she worked for lawyers when i was a kid, and she was a damn fine paralegal. but she always wanted to be the one arguing the cases. when i was a little kid, all curled up in her office with the code of alabama as a toy, i told her i was going to grow up to be a lawyer, and she would encourage the hell out of me. when i argued my "cases" in my high-school mock trial programs, she'd challenge me, help me refine my points and sharpen my analyses. i was good. and i was good because she made me good.

but the bitch of it is, she never got to see it happen for real. i was halfway through 1L year when i got that call. i hadn't talked to her in forever. i can't even remember if she knew i was in law school or not. i think so. but that's the way these things work when reality, complication, etc. set in. the night before my divorce was finalized, i lay in the arms of my man, a boy she always loved when we were kids, and cried like my heart was broken (because it felt like it was). i wept for the loss of my marriage, even though it was what i wanted. my heart broke for the mistakes i made, the sorrow i caused us both, all of that. and when i was able to choke out a sentence, what did i say? "i want my mom." because i did. who else do you turn to when your walls are crumbling, when you're hurt, sad and confused? wounded babies cry for mama. apparently, so do wounded women.

today i wore black, i played our old song. i looked at myself in the mirror and noticed all the ways i've grown to resemble her. with my hair red, it's uncanny. i celebrated the legacy of the woman who made me who i am. it just sucks beyond belief that i reached her goal, attained her dream, and she didn't make it to see. all i can do is make damn sure i live up to the standards she set. no time to rest on my laurels now.

je ne regrette rien

i've made a lot of decisions in the last year, and it's safe to say that i've blown up my life and rebuilt it, basically in front of the watchful eyes of the internet. but the last piece of the biggest decision came through today: my name change. i went from magnolia [married name] to magnolia [birth name]. for the first time since 2002, i don't have his last name anymore.

along with the huge administrative headache, there's a strange cocktail of emotion swirling around this one. this is it - it is OVER. once and for all, the break is complete. no retreat, no regrets, it is all said and done. i'm relieved, anguished, thrilled, angry, pleased and disappointed, all at once. the whole thing is shot through with exhaustion. the last year has been a heavy burden. even though i know it's not warranted, the guilt and anger my ex has thrown at me has been hard to handle. it's been rough on the man, too, having to deal with me like this. and now that it's over... well. i don't even know where to begin.

but i am certain of one thing. i am 100% on the right path. this is the life i chose, it's the life i want. the transition hurt like hell, twisted me into shapes unimaginable and made me ache with sorrow and rage more times than i care to consider. but i regret NOTHING. i got everything i wanted. i am free. and now, with the coda written, the symphony is over. time to start a new magnum opus.

and non, je ne regrette rien.

watershed

at long last, the dam broke.

i've been so together, so possessed of myself. i can handle anything. i laid in the man's bed, showered and ready to go to sleep, but something was wrong. he came in, watched some bad television, then turned out the lights and wrapped his arms around me. it felt so right, and yet the heaviness overtook me. the man noticed, and he slowly teased it out of me.

we talked for a long time about the things that weighed on me. well, i talked; he listened, he comforted. and finally, as i emptied the footlockers i carry around with me, the tears came. i cried, in front of him, for only the second time in our long history together. "i am so sick of losing people," i said to him. he kissed me, held me, soothed me. "i know."

and he does know. that's the secret. he knows so much about me, what i need, what i want, what i'm like (whether i'm owning up to it or not). he embraces it. he's so good to me and so good for me. and when i cry, it's not a problem or a disaster. it's just another wave to ride. he just handles it, the way he handles everything. and though you'd think it would be natural to be so comfortable with a man who's known me for half my life, it took me seeing him in this light to open up and let the walls down. it was a moment in our relationship that changed things. again.

a new beginning, consecrated in tears, a kiss, and a whispered, "i know."

the difficult kind

the weather has finally broken. the air's been pregnant with moisture for days, just waiting to burst forth and drench us all. thankfully, this all occurred after i got home with my groceries and my 50-pound school bag. but more importantly, my mood has broken along with the storm outside. the leaden feeling in my chest, the numbness that enveloped me, has been replaced with something lighter, more encouraging. about damn time, too.

there's a tinge of reborn confidence in this new emotional state. i'm starting to internalize the good parts of the changes in my life, and not in a fleeting "thank god it's over!" kind of way. yeah, this process, now that it's real, is harrowing and painful. things will be said that hurt me more than i could imagine, but that's the only bullet he has left. but i know i'm already better for standing up and cutting the cord. i've owned up to my mistake. i've offered my mea culpa, too. that's all i can do. now the growth, the working on me, begins in earnest.

no one ever said this would be easy. i'm finding out just how hard it is, actually. loving and losing in such a spectacularly devastating fashion has made me someone different than i was before. but it's bringing out the good in me, in a way that's far more authentic than clinging to a glittering charade. it's just a shame that i can't share the change with him. if he could only see what love has made of me, but i'll no longer be in his life. what he'll remember of me, well, it almost makes me cry. but that's how it happens, i guess. that's the fallout, and that's his loss. the lessons of this will be well appreciated in those who stick around.

and you won't see the good in me. but, babe, i've changed.

pictures of you

a fun side effect of moving is finding unexpected little surprises here and there, tucked into boxes behind old pairs of shoes and your stash of sweatshirts. i found a cache of old snapshots, a path through the halcyon days of college, before digital cameras made it infinitely easier to capture ignominy for the rest of the world to see. (and don't think i am not ETERNALLY grateful that i missed facebook in undergrad.) i spent a few happy minutes glancing through the stack, remembering some things fondly, with a pinch of bittersweet for how things have changed.

then i got to the last picture in the stack, and the shock of the sight took my breath away.

when i married at age 21, there were a couple hundred random snapshots in addition to the stiffly posed portraits. the photographer was far better at choosing action shots, casual vignettes of what was supposed to be our special day. dizzy with the good humor of the day, i convinced my least-social friend, who stood at the altar and watched me walk down the aisle to take my vows, to pass a slow dance with me. as we danced together, we talked, laughed, et cetera. the photographer crept up near us, without me even seeing it, and snapped a single photo of the moment. he was in mid-sentence, gesturing with one hand. i had a hand on his shoulder, smiling. we were looking each other in the eyes. honestly, to an outsider, you'd think he was the groom, so intimate was that moment.

so here we sit, so far from that day in so many ways. the man who put the ring on my finger doesn't live here. the wedding dress i wear hangs in the new closet, bearing witness to the past. and the friend from the picture? well, we laid in what was once my marital bed, skin against skin, and held each other close in the dark of the same night that brought me this slice of memory. we spoke in voices measured and fearful, pledging our love to one another and fearing the uncertainty of the changing dynamic between us. he mentioned that day, all those summers ago; watching me walk down the aisle and take another man's hand, he said, cut him in ways he couldn't articulate until that moment.

that photo, once a pleasant aside to the day that would build my life, is now only a stark reminder of what should have happened. but that's the funny thing about memories; you can use the example of what came before to rectify mistakes, to learn, and to grow. we learned from our errors, and in the darkness, in each other's arms, we forever changed the context. now, when i see the way we look at each other in that long-ago slow dance, i see a future, a possibility.

a memory reborn, reclaimed, all in the space of a picture.

the city that care forgot

i have a hard time writing about katrina. i didn't experience the storm firsthand; i watched it wreak its havoc from a thousand miles away, sitting in my living room with my cadre of gulf-coast-raised friends in a kind of dull horror. i took a trip across the south about two weeks after the storm, turning north from oxford, mississippi instead of south, meeting dazed evacuees in every town. i watched the nation's people come through in whatever small way they could as the nation's government was perfectly content to let an entire region drown. the wounds ran deep enough for those of us who love the place; for those who live there, who call it home, it's an unimaginable grief.

it's five years later. i have written a couple of times about my love for the pelican state and my special relationship to new orleans. i firmly believe that new orleans is the most special, unique and soulful city in this nation. it's the shot of tabasco in our melting pot. and it kills me that still, even now, it's not okay yet. but there's one thing i know of this place. i've seen it myself. there's a toughness to new orleanians, and by extension everyone in the region, from mobile across to lake charles, that should be the model for american backbone. it takes true grit to call that place home. you either have it or you don't.

but beyond the toughness, the gulf south has a kind of well-worn sparkle about it that's hard to describe. it's not the glitz of new york or los angeles, the flash of las vegas or miami, or the sophistication of DC or chicago, but there's a louche, bluesy redolence about the area. the spirit of new orleans is hard to put into words, but it touches the whole region in varying degrees. you have to experience it for yourself to truly understand, but once you've opened yourself up to the city, it's in your blood forever and you'll never be the same.

so five years after the storm, we mourn what's lost and celebrate what's left. i hold that wondrous city, brassy, beautiful, loud and sticky, in my heart with everything i have. there's much left to do, and it's vital to keep moving forward. the soul of our nation lives in new orleans. never forget it.

cool blue reason

there's a time in the middle of every big life decision when the fog of fear, pain, confusion, etc. parts, and for one brief second, the cold light of rationality shines on you. the road becomes clear. consensus may even be reached in a bitter fight.

i woke up this morning in a very bad head state. things had escalated way out of control, and every answer i thought i'd reached had been replaced by a hundred questions. but for once, my instinct to overthink, overanalyze and generally obsess myself into a serious problem held itself in abeyance. i sat down on the couch, picked up a leisure book, and simply... started... thinking. it almost felt like my process during the bar exam, weirdly: i felt myself looking at the fact pattern of my life, issue-spotting, and applying the law to the facts. well, not the law, but more like the truth of my emotional life.

and strangely enough, i started to come to some realizations. things became clear again. for the first time in probably two years, i feel like i'm at a place emotionally where i can function normally. there's not this weird, clamped tension in my heart when his name comes up. there's no longer that desperate, pinched neediness to the interaction. instead, i look at him and i see, well, him, sitting across from me. i see a way to a peaceable future. maybe not the one we'd imagined, or even the one i'd imagined, but a good, pleasant co-existence.

there's hope. there's a chance. and by god, that's all i need.

fire and rain

this is a bittersweet day for me. this would've been my mom's 58th birthday. i've written about her before, what happened, how she got sick and how she went. but i'm not really interested in focusing on the end of things. it sucks that she was so plagued with illnesses mental and physical over her life. but there was a lot of good in that woman, and i miss her on days like this.

she was a force of nature when she had her wits about you. so damn brilliant. no one could compete with her brain. (i like to think i take after her in that.) when i graduated from law school in may, my dad and i had about five minutes to ourselves in the midst of familial insanity, and he said to me, "your mom would've been so damn proud of you." that was probably the most meaningful thing i was told during all of that. she wanted to go to law school, but it never happened. she taught kindergarten and worked as a legal secretary instead. she'd have been great at it.

when she left us, i played the live version of "fire and rain" by james taylor from his album one man band on a non-stop loop for about a week. i thought i'd have more time. don't we all. but i've since made peace with what's happened. she's free. that's what matters. i have my memories of her, and i have the knowledge that i've done right by her legacy. i've grown into what she wanted for me. that's enough for me.

top of the world, mom.

unmoored

for the first time ever, and i say this without exaggeration, i am 100% on my own. no parental supervision, no main boy, not even a casual screw in my life. it is me and me alone. i can't believe that it's taken me this long to test myself as a grown, independent woman. i always prided myself on being headstrong and independent, and i think i've done a pretty good job of projecting that image into the world. but it was a false kind of strength; i knew it was pretty low-risk to take all these stands, because there was always that emotional safety net to catch me.

so here i go again on my own, as the song says. for real. i don't have that comfort to fall back on. i have got to learn how to soothe myself, how to cope, how to be whole as just myself. hell, this is an opportunity that's been a long time coming. for so long, i was part of an other. jesus, my nickname in college was the first letter of my first name. not even the letter itself; just the hard consonant sound. see, if you stuck that letter on the end of my man's name, it formed a word. so that was my identity: the letter at the end of the word. suited those people and their antediluvian, hyper-traditional worldview just fine. it didn't feel right then, but what did i know? i was so happy to be part of something that i never once stopped to think what i was giving up to be part of it.

but alas, as most houses of cards do, that illusion fell apart. here i sit, alternately so excited and so scared. the fears are real, and they feel so freaking huge that, when they hit, it's almost like i'm being consumed whole by doubts. but then there are nights like this, when the possibility of all this freedom shines through the trepidation. this is the time to seize the day. and it's weird to do this without a net. i always thought i'd have someone with me at all times. i don't know what it's like to approach things from this viewpoint. but you know something? i'm ready to learn. it's going to suck sometimes. but it's also going to be a real, true accomplishment. and the accomplishment will be all mine.

time for me to set sail.

louisiana [TRUE STORY]

i depart from fiction today to write a long-overdue love note to the state that's been my home for the last three years. when i left home to go to law school in louisiana, i was really disillusioned with things as they were. i was in a rut, plain and simple. it was time for a change, time to shake things up. but i had no idea whatsoever what lay in store for me when i arrived in baton rouge on july 31, 2007 to start my career at LSU paul m. hebert law center.

leaving a major city to go back to a college town had its downsides. there's no doubt about it. but a funny thing happened to me as i grew into my new life: as much as i missed what i'd left, i came to love LSU, its people, and the state as a whole. LSU was an amazing place to spend three years. i had brilliant professors who broke me of my old way of looking at the world and rebuilt me into a sound legal mind. i am profoundly different intellectually than i was when i got here, and for that i will be forever grateful. LSU law center made me a mature thinker, and moreover made me a mature person. aside from the main business at hand, though, LSU brought me some incredible people. my nearest and dearest from PMH know who they are. i'm not sure i ever made this clear enough in our three years together, and if i didn't, that was my fault. but this is for y'all: thank you so, so much for all the love and support you showed me. i never would've made it without you. you held me up when i was sure i couldn't go on, you laughed with me, you listened to me. i only hope i can be as good a friend to each of you as you've been to me over the years. i love you all.

and it's weird; i never saw it coming, but it's true what they say about living in louisiana. it's unlike any place else in the country, and probably any place else on earth. i grew up in the deep south; 17 years as a gulf coast kid made me think i understood southern life. i had no idea what i was in for. louisiana is a jewel among places in our country, even with its flaws. there is no place more special. there's a way of life here that can't be replicated anywhere else, and it's something to be cherished. when you read about this oil spill and what it threatens, understand that it threatens something so valuable, so irreplaceable in american life that it should inspire everyone to demand solutions now. the people here have suffered long enough, as rep. melancon so eloquently stated this week.

there's a lot about this place that makes me angry. there's a lot that frustrates me. but for everything i don't like, there are five things i love about louisiana. the deep love i hold in my heart for new orleans alone could fill a book. if you ever need to know about south louisiana, others have said it way better than i could ever say. but know that once you've lived here, once you've laughed all night long on the streets of new orleans with your friends over rum drinks, once you've experienced boudin balls, crawfish boils and cochon de lait, once you've watched the sun find its home in the western sky as it becomes saturday night in tiger stadium, you just know. and you'll never be the same again.

i love my yankee, big-city mid-atlantic home. i am thrilled beyond belief to get back to what i knew before. but i am forever changed. i'm a law-school graduate now, and that's great. but i've also given a part of my heart and soul to the sportsman's paradise, the pelican state, the bayou, the big easy. louisiana is in my blood forever now, and i wouldn't have it any other way. the fleur-de-lis that hangs around my neck is only a small token of the way louisiana has changed me, got into me, and made me who i am today. i love this place for that. always will. so as i get ready to fly back to my old life, i leave a piece of myself behind. i sure never expected to fall for this place as i did. but for what you gave me, what you made me, and what you showed me, louisiana, i have only one thing to say:

thanks.