The Top Five: Questions about giving it all up .....continued....

Good evening dear reader, you are no doubt agog to know the answers to the rest of the questions people ask about giving up a career in law.........assuming that you made it through the previous blog's ramblings without slipping into a boredom induced coma or turning to drink!

3. So when are you going back? No idea!! The thing about life with small children is that it presents constant opportunities for spontaneity but very little chance to plan reliably too far ahead.........

to blunder off at a tangent - you won't find me talking in great specific detail about the kids in this blog because (a) I have a friend who blogs about family life brilliantly and I'd rather read hers than write on the same topic and (b) hopefully there are other people out there considering a change of career and wondering how that might change their sense of self, how their identity will be affected, how to avoid watching Jeremy Kyle all day - and they may or may not have kids, but a lot of the issues will be similar...............

A big part of the "so when are you going back" is related to the children - their needs trump everything else - but there are lots of other issues.   Will The Firm (my most recent employer) want me - I'm a bit old and specialized and therefore a little bit more expensive to employ and probably stuck in my ways! What happens, when the time comes and there is a chance to go back, if I find that I don't have the heart or stomach (or, to be fair, any other organ) for the law anymore?

I started on my glittering career as a naive 17 year old contemplating what degree to do and decided that, being a bit squeamish for medicine, law looked interesting.  I enjoyed studying law, I even enjoyed the notorious year of Solicitor's exams, and the pre-qualification training I received at a Northern firm was endlessly engaging and enjoyable.  Most of my years in practice, and certainly the most recent at The Firm, have been very happy - I'm naturally talkative and nosey ("interested in people") - so a very people oriented area of law (not crime) has suited me well............but I don't know how I feel about it right now, mainly because I don't think about it.

Anyway - the other part of the answer to 3. is that I am not-at-all-secretly hoping I will somehow have a career as an opera singer so perhaps I'll wait a bit in case I get "spotted".....

The Top Five: Questions people ask you when you give it all up..........

1.  So do you miss it?
2. What do you DO all day?
3. So when are you going back?
4. I bet you miss the money, don't you (solicitors earn a fortune don't they)?
5. So what are you going to do NOW?

Well, reader (I assume I might have at least one, even if it is only the one I am married to), let me start my no doubt soon to be illustrious blog career by answering 1. and 2. - which sort of go together........

Firstly : Do I miss it? - In a word NO - not as such (sorry beloved former colleagues).  I miss the specific people, but I certainly don't lack for intellectual challenge and stimulation, nor (now both my small children are at school) for time sitting down in peace and quiet..............actually that isn't true because:

Secondly: What do I DO all day? (A question which Mr Life After Law - another successful Law escapee - does ask from time to time when feeling brave) - you have got to be kidding me!! The school day which I fondly imagined was going to allow endless time for making bread by hand and wafting about reading poetry flashes past before you can say "I've just got to nip out".  Life has a different rhythm and it all revolves around one central Commandment: I must NEVER EVER fail to be at the school gate on time - which is 6 hours after I was last there.  I volunteer at the school, I have a new and wonderful singing teacher, I support (and am supported by) other people in my life who don't have fixed PAYE related engagements in the day (and some who do) - but mostly and through and through I am Mummy - even when the children are not here I am, like one slightly scruffy clapped out fire engine, on call - I'm in the engine shed waiting for the bell to ring and while I do that I am doing essential maintenance - to the house, to my sanity etc etc.

All this might be very boring to the readers out there in the blogosphere - fair do's : sometimes it bores me! However it might encourage some of you to know that there is life after a big career change - I make no bones about it, I have a job, a full time job and it is my vocational career.  Noone pays me and it involves a lot of poo (literally unfortunately) but it is rewarding challenging and intriguing.   I struggled to make the choice to adopt my new career but I have never regretted it!

Next time - on to the rest of the top five..........unless the readers have other questions that simply must be answered (like, how if I say I am so busy can I possibly have time to rant on like this??)

Life After Law - It's out there!!