Selling Out

Not that there was any doubt that I would do it, and not that there was any doubt that I had already done it, but last weekend made it abundantly clear that I am officially part of corporate America.

My firm held its "all-attorney" retreat last weekend, where it flys the entire firm to a sunny location for a whole host of activities with the ultimate purpose of achieving what one only reads about on the self-help shelves or learns in an MBA program. Although the retreat was actually a really great program, full of high profile and largely interesting speakers, with minimal forced socialization with the most boring of the attorneys, there were a few unmistakable signs that my life is nothing like it was just a few short years ago:

1. Three days in Palm Springs
2. At a luxury resort
3. Laying by the pool
4. Playing in the firm golf tournament
5. And collecting random bits of memorabilia emblazoned with the firm's name (my favorite, the beer stein).

Yes, I believe I have become that person.

Monday, Monday

9:30 am, Monday morning:

"Chicagoan, when are you going to be finished with that letter I asked you to draft?"

"Later this afternoon."

"Great! Did you have a nice weekend?"

"No."

"Why not? You weren't here the whole time, were you?"

"Yes."

"Chicagoan, you need to get a life."

Filing that one away in the category of things I don't need to hear first thing on a Monday morning.

Exactly Where: Adulthood

I was always the kid who was in a hurry to grow up. I wanted to sit at the adult table on holidays and wanted to have the important conversations that occurred in the living room (rather than in the family room with the other kids). I wanted to watch serious TV and wanted to spend time by myself in the big city. I wanted have my own bank account that no one else could access and wanted to have the title to my first car solely in my own name.

With my 28th birthday last week, and my corresponding entry into the realm of my late 20s, I suppose there is no doubt that I am now a grown-up. I’m on my second car, with the title in my name (well, mine and the bank’s name), that I purchased without the assistance of anyone, and I’m well on my way to a mortgage down payment, which I will likely lay down without the assistance of anyone. I’m 800 miles away from those who think that I should have to check in daily, so I check in weekly if I feel so inclined. And I’m working in a job that dumps a surprising amount of responsibility on me on a daily basis. Many of my friends are married property-owners, thinking about whether children are in their near futures. Among those friends are other lawyers, doctors, professors-to-be, managers, etc.—all people who are not just the cogs in the wheel, but those who are charged in some way with deciding how the wheel will turn.

Being an adult sort of crept up on me, but like everyone else, this is what I’ve been preparing for throughout my youth. Unlike everyone else, though, I was the sort of odd child who thought that adulthood was exactly where I wanted to be.

In The Details

Chinatown Arch,

7th and H Streets N.W. (February 2007)