Bittersweet

June 30th.  A rough time for a transactional attorney.

This AM, after a long work day yesterday to cap off an even longer work week (and too much wine last night to celebrate the end of the quarter), I woke, went for a run while listening to mandarin lessons, and then hopped in the car for a 3 hour drive to a family wedding-related event.

With traffic, it was 3.5 hours.

But, thanks to E's offer to be the driver, the delay didn't bother me, I took advantage of the time.  I marked up a contract, I composed emails, I finalized time sheets for the month.  Eventually, with 45 minutes to spare before arriving at my cousin's bridal shower, I looked up, with the "must do" work finally done, shut my computer, looked out at the laborers in the fields of the California central valley and almost started to cry.

It's June 30th.  The end of the quarter.  Tomorrow, things will be easier.  Lighter.  Less stressful. This is true every end of the fiscal quarter for me.  But, I do not manage the stress as well as I could or should.  And, in the grand scheme of things, my life is *not* stressful.  The laborers could not have made this more clear.

Which just made me want to cry more.

I needed a stress release, but I also needed to hold it together, at least 'til after the bridal shower.

So I did.  And now I'm here, sitting on a balcony, replying to the 20 emails that came in during the bridal shower and watching the sun set over the pacific ocean at a lovely beachside hotel.

When I was a kid, I dreamed of being the person who could splurge on the balcony view over the ocean room.  I never guessed I'd be there one day because I was too busy to book a room until all that was left were the expensive ones.  And I definitely never thought I'd be here because I needed to work and I wanted to visit my aging gran, but because AM visits are much better for her, I needed to stay the night after the bridal shower unless I wanted to get on the road at 5 AM and do a pre-bridal shower visit (which, if I'm honest was not happening with me alone, much less with E as a driver and companion).

So yeah, I finally hit one of the goals I set in my innocence as a kid, I can actually afford and justify staying in the hotel room with the balcony and a view at the beach near my dad's hometown.

I thought that was success, a long, long time ago.

But it's not remotely why or how I imagined.

I'm not complaining.  It's awesome.  It's just completely different than I thought.

In short, it's bittersweet.