So far the hardest part about growing up is deciding what I want.

Dear Internet,

Usually, for your benefit and my level of happiness, I try to keep my posts very upbeat. I try to skate over negative things that happen and post pretty pictures of good things that happen. I think it's healthy to focus on the positive and it makes for better reading. But more pensive times have come.

Not to be a Debbie Downer, or anything. I just wanted to sort out my thoughts and writing helps with that. The thing is, I am not enjoying my job lately; partly - say 60 percent - because I'm not busy enough, but also - 40 percent - because I'm just not finding it as fulfilling as I thought I would. Also - 100 percent - because I miss life in ERT.

I'll clarify. The not-busy part is easily enough overcome. My supervisor, Brian and I meet twice-ish a week via Skype and he gives me lists of projects to work on; for the last week or two, the lists don't last as long as the time in between Skype chats. I've gotten in touch with him to ask for more to do, but even the updated lists don't fill up all the empty time. I also feel like I'm invading his work time by constantly bugging him for more to do. I probably need to get over that. Regardless, I end up surfing Facebook or Pinterest for a few hours a day. A certain percentage of Internet trolling is not out of place in a work day, mind you, but when it's several hours' worth I get really frustrated, but there's just nothing left on my list of projects.

One of the things that I kind of knew/suspected about this job when I began was that I would have to be a bit more of a self-starter. I knew I wouldn't have a team around me, working hard at a given task and getting me to work alongside them. I knew it would be up to me. So I need to start finding things to do, relevant things that fill my hours, my own projects. It's just a kind of strange transition. When I think about it, I've always kind of had someone guide what I'm working on - a supervisor, a professor, etc. I still have a supervisor, of course, but I'm going to have to start to fill in gaps.

Then there's the not-so-fulfilling part. This is in part due to the fact that I don't actually interact with humans in the course of my work - even though I work in an office full of great people, I don't have to speak to a single one of them during the day to do my job. I'm a sort of satellite for the Seattle office of NTAP, so I'm not working on any of the same things as the people here in MLSA. Furthermore, the people I'm serving as a VISTA are the lawyers - who I don't see or work directly with - who then help people who are even more remote from me. It's tough to feel like I'm actually accomplishing anything or doing anything good at all. The end results of my work are all digital - blog posts, videos, and Tweets - just a bunch of 0s and 1s.

This one's harder to deal with, but not impossible. A few weeks ago, the Executive Director of MLSA mentioned training me on the help desk that MLSA runs (not the NTAP help desk that I staff). I would actually be able to help callers find legal help (I think; there's a fine line between what a non-lawyer can and cannot say to potential clients). That would be a good thing for me to get involved in if it's okay by Brian, so of course I should check with both the Executive Director and Brian. Other than that, I think I just need to try to remember that I am doing something worthwhile. I think.

Overall, the hardest part of the transition into this job is its sheer contrast with ERT. Everything I can think of is different: instead of working outside with a team of four or five, I work by myself in front of a computer. Instead of never really knowing where I'm going next, I have a very regular (bordering on boring) schedule. Instead of constantly having people around, even in the off hours, I'm usually on my own. I laugh less. I miss everyone. I miss Soulard.

As I've been growing up, I've of course been trying to figure out what I want to do, which direction I should choose in life. I'm still not sure what I want to do for work - my main hesitation in applying to law/grad school, which I had planned to do this fall - but I've found how I want to live. It's funny, I was always pretty introverted and liked having time to myself, but I just loved life in ERT. I practically lived at the Shenandoah apartments, surrounded by people who felt like my family, in good ways and bad. They drove me nuts and there was no privacy, but we just had this amazing level of comfort with one another; amazing at least to me. ERT was the first time I felt comfortable wearing little to no makeup, for example. Those people saw me at my worst, frustrated and angry and bored throwing sticks at Peck Ranch in February. And they didn't hate me for it. I learned a lot from them, more than I at first thought that they could teach me. I miss them a lot.

Unexpectedly, I also really miss Soulard. That little neighborhood felt like it belonged to us and we belonged to it. I've never felt that way about a place before. It was exactly right for who we all were and where we were in our lives. I used to joke that Soulard felt like a campus and it did; Shenandoah was our dorm-slash-frat house. I guess I was just never "in" on that stuff in college, so it came as a revelation. It was great.

I wish I could live like that again, but I have a sneaking suspicion that I never will, and this makes me sad. I was talking to Will a few weeks ago after he returned to Shenandoah from the time-honored tradition of $2 pitchers on Sunday nights at Llewelyn's, and he was telling me about poking fun at another member of the team last year, Clare. Clare was returning to pick up her truck at Shenandoah and he started hollering at her, just trying to get a rise out of her (as he does). I could see the whole thing: the steps of Shenandoah looking out over Pontiac Park, Clare's teal pickup truck parked across the street, busy 7th Avenue off to the right and groups of ERT members straggling up the cracked sidewalks of 9th, lit intermittently by the streetlights. For some reason, at that particular moment, I missed Soulard and ERT and all of it so bad that it hurt. Unlike the things I listed above, there's not a cure for this one, except time, maybe. I don't want to forget what ERT life was like, even if I never live it again. Especially then.

The long and short of all this is that this job is feeling less like something I'm looking forward to this year and more a like a trap; something I committed to and now I just have to get through it. I'm wondering if it was worth it, and - right now - saying no. I took this job because, as much as I loved ERT, it wasn't the kind of work I could see myself spending my life on and I thought that in staying another year I would feel stuck. I could potentially see myself going to law school, working in legal aid, etc. etc. I knew that the life would be different but I thought that the work would be good. But now that the job is not all I had hoped and dreamed, I just don't know. I don't know.

I guess the silver lining is that I'm learning a bit more about what I want in life, and what I don't want. I just wish it didn't have to be the hard way.

xoxo Liz

P.S. Thanks guys, that helped.