on Faith.

There’s a woman here at the Firm whom I used to work with quite a bit a few years back. She is a formidable attorney — one of the top reinsurance lawyers in the world. When people think about who to pick for their reinsurance dispute, her name is usually on a very very very short list. She is demanding of those she works with, but she is, in many ways, one of those critical mentors — the type of person whose tutelage can help to shape a young lawyer’s career.

I spent about a month with her embroiled in depositions and then another 17 days with her, holed up in the basement of a Hilton Hotel, trying a case. During those weeks, I learned so much about how to effectively cross examine someone, draft a killer closing argument, or corner a deponent into an admission. But, more importantly, I learned how to make clients always feel like they made the right choice in choosing you; how to take a case from beginning to end, such that it appeared that nothing was out of order; how to make your team feel valued and important.

We also talked a lot about football, shoes, handbags, the theatre, Paris, lo-carb sandwiches, yoga, heartbreak, and family.

She’s retiring this year. About 15 years earlier than most people do. She’s done with the lawyer game, she says, and she’s finally going to start working on the screenplay that’s been stuck inside her head for the past several years. In other words, she’s going to give up a lucrative career here at one of the largest law firms in the country in favor of writing her first screenplay, ever.

Needless to say, there will be (and have been) a few raised eyebrows. No one has said the word “crazy,” per se, but the question has been asked: “Are you SURE about this?”

To which her answer is:

“I have more faith in myself than I do the Firm.”

***

For about the first quarter century of my life, “faith” was synonymous with a vaguely Santa Claus looking man in the sky who went by the name “God” and had a kid named “Jesus.” It had nothing to do with faith in self, and in fact, any “inward” looking actualization was deemed “idolatry.” I distinctly recall my pastor preaching to his flock (of which I was a card-carrying member, at the time) that Mariah Carey’s hit “Hero” (“a hero lies in you”) was basically Satanic because it propogated the displacement of God with the ego.

Thus, the idea of investing in myself was counterintuitive. I invested in obedience. I invested in my parents. I invested in structure. I invested in the church. I was led to believe and fully bought into the idea that a very cool “divine” plan had already been developed for me — long before I was a glimmer in my Daddy’s eye — and that this plan would be chock full of things like a two-car garage, a son and a daughter, a nice job, and a really handsome husband with a 6-digit income. Sure, I would have to work for things, but, in the end, “It would all work out in accordance with His plan.”

And things did seem to go according to The Plan. I graduated from one of the best law schools in the country and got a job at a 1000 lawyer law firm. My parents — the earthly manifestation of my faith in God — they were so hella proud of me. I was engaged to the only man I ever loved in my life — my college sweetheart. We were living in a 2400 square foot townhouse with a 2-car garage and 3.5 bathrooms. We had two adorable dogs, and though kids weren’t on the horizon, they were a definite “maybe.” We got married at Rockefeller Chapel, with the reception in a swanky downtown hotel. My wedding dress was the first one I fell in love with at Saks — a couture gown that literally swept me off my feet.

Sounds like a fucking commercial for laundry detergent, doesn’t it? On the surface, everything was perfect and I can’t even recount the number of times I heard “Your life is so perfect!” without wanting to vomit. Because I knew, better than anyone — perhaps even God — how I was barely holding it all together, just how many tears went into making for damn sure that none of the imperfections ever bubbled to the surface. But all anyone had to do was poke at the mirage to find drugs, alcohol, and the kind of resentment that exists only to unravel any hope of joy. Though I didn’t want to believe it, these were the cornerstones of the plan on which I’d built my entire life.

My life was—I was a sham.

***

I still remember the exact moment I realized I had to leave my ex-husband. I had spent three nights “sleeping” on my parents’ living room couch — three nights during which I rested my phone on the side of my face “just in case he called.” He never called. I decided I would go back to my home and give him a choice — marriage counseling or a divorce. I was sitting on the lowest step of the staircase leading to our bedroom as I laid these options out to him.

He said no to marriage counseling.

I gathered up all the courage I had like a bundle of straws and said,

“Then it’s divorce.”

He nodded. Without a word, he began throwing a few things into his backpack. T-shirts. A toothbrush. His iPod. He started making his way to the front door and turned back only to say, “Take care of Billy for me” (his dog). He was trying not to cry.

You know that feeling you get when you’re at the dentist and they’re putting you under to have your wisdom teeth removed? Or when you’re running the last mile of your 10-mile run and it’s like someone’s actually digging into your stomach for whatever scraps of fuel they can find? Or when you’re having that dream that you’re sitting for a final exam and you don’t know a fucking thing only it’s not a dream?

They say it’s all in the head — heartbreak. Bullshit. As my ex-husband stepped out the front door, it was physiological. I could actually feel my heart trying to claw through my ribcage, my muscles, my skin, even, and go right along with him.

My resolve fled. I begged him to stay. He stayed.

The moment had passed.

***

It’s easy to believe in a plan — especially one that you didn’t even have a hand in creating.

For the past three years, I feel like all I’ve done is dismantle the plan. Not to start from scratch, really. Just to start — start doing things for me, start going at my own pace, start setting goals that have nothing to do with what everyone else expects from me but what I want from this life. That way, when I check things off my mental checklist, I can say,

“This is mine. This is me. I did this.”

I’m renewing the lease on my 1150 square foot apartment overlooking the Lake. My brother and his wife — my roommates and my support system these past two years — will be leaving the nest to start their own new chapter. I’m going to run my first half-marathon. I’m going to pay off my credit cards and eschew conspicuous consumption and refined sugar. I will love those who not only know my worth, but believe in it. I will leave behind those who do not.

Whether it’s making partner or saying goodbye, closing the door to the past is frightening. But, I will walk out, one thundering step at a time, notwithstanding.

Because I have more faith in me than I do any goddamn plan.