Happy (Extremely Belated) Holidays/New Year, everyone! I hope everyone’s 2021 is off to a decent start.
Despite the best efforts of health authorities everywhere, COVID-19 is still very much a serious problem. This made the 2020 holiday season a bit less jolly than usual and kept celebrations to a minimum. Ironically, this didn’t make a huge difference for me, as I spent most of the previous holiday season indoors and alone as well. Still, I did what I could: I called my loved ones, kept my little electric menorah lit, and gorged myself on peppermint bark.
As December came to an end, so did 2020. This was a doozy of a year that just about everyone was happy to see go (including yours truly). The United States had a toxic presidential election where partisanship was prevalent as ever. Police brutality (already a massive social problem that I occasionally run across at work) escalated to horrific new levels in response to peaceful protests and frightening riots alike. The West Coast became an inferno triggered by wildfires, leading to apocalyptic orange skies and hellish storms of smoke. Worst of all, the COVID-19 pandemic threw the entire world into disarray and fear. I was not immune from these troubles: I haven't been with Cthulhu since March, I spent most of summer devoid of personal human contact, the wildfires in Oregon caused me no end of fear, and I've been handling a variety of serious/unpleasant cases since becoming major felony-certified. Still, as troubling as this year was, it had a lot of significance for me in one major way: this was my first full year practicing as a lawyer. I tried cases, learned the complexities of running a law office, interacted with a wide variety of clients, became major felony-certified, and gained no end of experience. Although I won’t have the fondest memories of 2020, it was undoubtedly an extremely important year for me and my career.
Although 2021 is shaping up to be a year where things could get a lot better, it started with an unpleasant bang. On January 6, there was an ugly riot in Washington, D.C. that almost escalated into a full-scale insurrection. I won’t go into detail here (as previously mentioned, serious political discourse is outside the scope of this goofy slice-of-life blog; look this up in your search engine or newspaper of choice), but I will mention that that particular day was agonizing. I spent most of the afternoon trying to stay calm and praying that a civil war wouldn’t break out. Eventually, the chaos subsided (though the aftereffects will be felt for quite a while). I was so shaken by the events, I was actually relieved to have an extremely uneventful birthday. As with last year, I was far away from friends and family on the day in question. Unlike last year, a deadly virus was on the loose, so I didn’t have the means to eat out or to leave the county for a birthday celebration. As such, my birthday celebrations were limited to reaching out to friends/loved ones, playing computer games from my youth, and gorging myself on cake. It wasn’t an ideal way to spend a birthday, but it works just fine for me in the shadow of civil war and disease. I still have my friends and loved ones, I’m still a practicing attorney, and I’m still alive—that’s certainly worthy of celebration, no matter how small-scale.
Revolts aside, this year has a lot of the same issues as last year so far. My room is still a mess, finances are as complicated as ever, cases are as complicated as ever, new technology is as complicated as ever, Donald Trump is still the President (for future readers not paying attention in history class, Donald Trump was a controversial real estate tycoon elected President in 2016 who lost re-election in 2020—now please pay more attention in class), crimes are still committed, everything is in lockdown thanks to the pandemic, I still sleep too much on weekends, and I’m still figuring out how to be a competent lawyer. I’ll address these old problems as I did last year: a combination of determination, support, and gorging myself on ice cream. With any luck, my second full year as an attorney will be smoother than my first.
