New Job, Same Pandemic

Starting a job during these turbulent times can be equal parts exhilarating and overwhelming.

By Eden Davis Stephens  
on

Ed. note: This is the latest installment in a series of posts on motherhood in the legal profession, in partnership with our friends at MothersEsquire. Welcome Eden Davis Stephens back to our pages. Click here if you’d like to donate to MothersEsquire.

Switching legal jobs in the middle of the pandemic has been quite the personal journey for me, but not the one I would have anticipated. The new job was everything I wanted and needed careerwise, but became its own distraction from thoughts and feelings I didn’t want to have. I have created an emotional turducken of pandemic angst over professional elation over life-long anxiety and depression.

There have certainly been logistical hijinks during this period. We have two attorneys working remotely alongside our 9-year-old, who is also learning from home. Not a day goes by where I don’t curse our open-floor-plan bungalow. Conference calls, depositions, and loud fourth-grade specials must be accounted for each day. I have a greater appreciation for the literal and metaphorical space a separate office provides. The only reprieve I’ve received in this coordination has been the ability to send my 4-year-old back to daycare. (Which, of course, was not done without hand-wringing over risks and drama — from her as she realized she’s the only one leaving the house, and for us with an inconvenient two-week quarantine.)

As with any over-achiever, my self-esteem is built on a foundation of praised work and checked-off lists. My validation and sense of value has primarily been through school and work. The multiple learning curves of this new position have been equal parts exhilarating and overwhelming. My prior job dealt with a narrow aspect of law and had a “conveyor belt” flow of managing hearings and decisions. I went from seven years of the same story about bedbugs and halfway-house fire escapes, to considering lengthy motions folding in the Commerce Clause. It was an intellectual leap, for sure. Trying to rewire one’s brain to this mode is difficult with unceremonious requests to help with “new” math and video uploads. My patience has been tried at the level of the Spanish Inquisition.

Herein lies the intersection of self, family, and work. When you feel your jawline tighten when your elementary-aged child asks for lunch, it is time to look within. Since both of mine arrived in this world, I have wrestled with the minutiae of meeting their basic needs. Nurturing small, helpless humans was neither natural nor pleasant for me. Child care is a continuous loop of tasks and problem-solving. The mental load of their care puts my anxiety in hyper drive. Love overrides the discomfort, but a part of my brain is always “on” to think of things related to them — encouraging development while avoiding pitfalls, making sure they do not have cereal seven meals in a row, wondering if I signed whatever form came home crumpled in their bag. When you live with people like that in your brain all day, you feel less inclined to be mentally and emotionally available at home whey they’re in front of you.

I did realize the balance is on me to create. It is the nature of toddler-hood I resent, not the toddler.  In the Before Times, I had worked out a routine to manage my mental health so I could be more present in the three allotted hours I spent with my kids each weekday. Thanks to a neighboring yoga studio, I could reset myself before kid pick-up. Sweating for an hour cleared the brain from work obligations, and I could be a better me, a better mom, and a better partner. One may argue I can still do this, but it can’t be done without having to reach down and apply yet another layer of self-initiated discipline. The actual transfer of bodies through space and time provided a great built-in and underappreciated boundary.

There’s also the pull of the familiar and what provides you comfort. As I picked up new skills and received gracious feedback from my new co-workers, I clung to the consistency of court rules and case law. It is easy to justify continuously staring at a screen for work, where you know your place.  It is not easy to figure out what I can do to safely bridge the isolation my 9-year-old faced. It is not easy to apply the changing health recommendations to our daily lives. It is also not easy to find new ways to connect when your bonding activities relied on external businesses. But what can you do, right? Pandemic!

Sponsored

Very recently, I realized my depression has come roaring back. I recognize I am in a very privileged state as I watch unemployment numbers rise, so I find the guilt-ridden energy to be fully functional for work. Pandemic, however, masks the fact that I don’t have the energy or zest to do much of anything else — certainly not anything that helps “keep your own cup full.” Unwashed hair and sloppy clothes used to be an indicator that I was on the down and out, but now it is an acceptable state of being as we collectively shuffle around our houses. Not wanting to go anywhere and keep to myself was also a clue, but that option is universally removed. In these restricted conditions, malaise is much harder to spot.

Awareness is key though, and a fundamental step in managing my depression. Managed mood means more opportunities to be a better version of myself for my family. Self-compassion is also important, as navigating through life at its most basic is strange and uncertain during this period of human history. I have to remind myself that sometimes just getting through a day is enough. I am grateful for the lessons of these new experiences, welcome and unwelcome. I especially appreciate any joy that has come my way over the past year as we’ve sheltered in place, isolated from others. It is as they say though, wherever you (don’t) go, there you are.

Eden Davis Stephens is the Deputy Executive Director of the Office of Administrative Hearings within Kentucky’s Public Protection Cabinet. Her parenting wish to not have boring children was granted.  Her creative and headstrong daughters make her excited for their futures, but personally tired in the present. If you feel so led, you can Friend her on Facebook at Eden Davis Stephens or follow her on Instagram @superedentica.

Sponsored

Topics

, , , ,