At least someone missed me

I'm being smothered by my cats since getting home this evening. They keep following me around the house and meowing and crawling on me the second I sit down and/or lay down. I take it they missed me a little...

Well it's nice to feel loved, even if it includes way more smothering than I'd go for.

This is true

M Thru F: Well When You Put It That Way, Life Seems So Much Simpler

Whoa, smart phones!

So, apparently my smart phone has an app that lets me blog from my phone! (If any of you tech-savvy readers already knew that, shhhh...I'm slow on these type of things...).

And I can even post photos! So, here's a photo of my adorable but very strange cat.

Down to .666 average and other news

Well, I lost my most recent felony trial.  That sucked a lot, especially because I thought we had a really good case.  I was pretty disappointed when we lost and was in a foul mood for the rest of the day and into the next one, as well.  The only good part about the whole thing is that I know for certain that my client felt like he had good representation during his case.  I know this because he told me.  After my closing argument, I sat back down and he leaned over and said, "Guilty or not guilty, you did a great job.  I just wanted you to know that."  And then after we got the verdict, he said, "It sucks, but you did the best you could do and that's all I can ask for.  I have no complaints--you're the best lawyer I've ever had and I've had lots of public pretenders in the past."  So, while losing the trial really, really sucked and I was really disappointed, I took some solace in the knowledge that my client knew I'd put my all into it and that there was really nothing more I could do--no second guessing that if I'd only done this or that, then maybe the jury would have acquitted.  

People with torsos longer than their legs freak me out.

Tomorrow is the first major holiday without You Know Who. To stave off the tears, I'm heading to Chicago to hang with RV and RN. BFFEs to the rescue!

I've decided I don't really like living alone...

Felony trial number three starts today. Let's see if I remain undefeated.

Why I love my job

On Wednesday, I was lurking around the courthouse waiting in between hearings, just sort of milling around in the common area.  There was a man there waiting around, too, and he came up to me and said, "Hey, you're a lawyer, right?"  I told him that I was and he said, "I can't remember your name, but I think I've heard of you."  So, I told him my name and he said, "Yeah, yeah, I've heard about you. I've heard you do a lot of good work for people.  They really like having you.  You're a really good lawyer." 

I was really surprised because I'd never met this guy or seen this guy before, but it sure was awesome to hear that.  Definitely made my day.  Actually, I think it even made my week. 

Grocery shopping for one person is one of the most depressing times of my life.

Tonight I stopped praying for him to come back to me. Instead, I asked God to help me stop loving him.

Just breathe

We're starting couples' counseling on Thursday.  I convinced Hat to go by asking him to at least go with me so that someone, some third party, could help me understand his reasons for leaving.  Shockingly, just hearing that he's "done" and doesn't want to try to fix things because he "doesn't want to" or because he "doesn't have the energy" isn't exactly enough of an answer for me.  So, he agreed to go to counseling but ONLY for the purpose of having a therapist help me understand why he's leaving.  He's also agreed to get a screening for depression, since pretty much everyone who knows him has asked if that is the problem.  


I'm not sure what to expect at this counseling session.  It's only our first one, so I suppose not a whole lot will get accomplished.  But, I'm still nervous about it.  I'm always nervous about stuff like that. 


In the meantime, I'm trying to maintain my happy demeanor in front of Hat as much as possible.  So far, I've been pretty successful.  And actually, he's warmed up to me a lot lately, which I think is a good sign.  On Tuesday night, we went out after he got off work and ate a late dinner.  Some time during that night, he put his wedding ring back on.  We didn't discuss it or anything, he just had it back on once we got home (we drove separate since he was coming straight from work).  I asked him about it a couple of days later and he said he put it back on because I had asked him to (back on September 23...which he didn't do until just this last Tuesday, so I don't know if I believe that's the only reason he put it back on).  And on Saturday, we went out to dinner and a comedy show and had a very nice time.  It wasn't super romantic or anything, but it was fun and at the end of the night, he was much more like his old self--at one point in time he even called me by his nickname for me (possibly out of habit without even realizing it) and before I went to bed, he asked me for a hug twice.  So, as hard as it is to pretend to be fine and happy and like nothing is bothering me, I think it's actually making things better at home since I'm not constantly sobbing. 


I am cautiously, slightly hopeful that we may still work things out.  We are still married until we're not and if we stick to the original plan to wait to file for the divorce until the end of our lease, we've got a long, long time (like until July 31, 2012) before we're officially done.  He decided in less than a month he wanted a divorce, so it's not a crazy to think that a lot can happen in 10 months.  Especially if part of the problem is undiagnosed depression on his part. Considering he has a substantial family history of it (meaning every male on his mom's side and his mom), it's a possibility.  So, I'm trying to work on getting myself prepared for the worst (divorce) but hoping for the best (reconciliation and continuation of our marriage). Who knows what will ultimately happen, but I can't at this point in time just throw my hands up in the air and say, "Oh well!"  We've got almost a year still before we'd be divorced--who knows what can happen in that time?  So, I am going to try to continue to keep my crying in check for the time being and see what comes of the counseling/depression screening.  


I refuse to give up that easily.  I'm not ready to concede defeat just yet.

Coping

Well, it's been a long week and a half, to be sure.  It hasn't been all bad, although a lot of it has been bad.  I'm trying to just focus on what makes me happy (outside of my marriage, obviously) and try to do those things.  I've been trying to keep a positive attitude each day, even though that sometimes feels impossible.  Work helps somewhat, since it can at least distract me for a bit.  But, it's never a total distraction because the situation with Hat is always on my mind, just in the background.  But, I'm trying.  

The worst part is that the loneliness that accompanies this is so incredible and profound.  Even when I have my wonderful, supportive, caring friends helping me, with me, making sure I'm functioning, etc, there is still this constant sense of loneliness over me.  When I'm alone, at night especially, it becomes almost overwhelming how alone I feel.  Although I know logically that I'm not the only person who has ever had their spouse divorce them, it feels like I am the only one.  

So this divorce diet is working out great for me. I've lost 11 pounds since Tuesday.

Second verse, same as the first

I worked from home today because yesterday I couldn't manage to get through one hour without having to go into the bathroom to cry.  I just accepted the fact that I would be crying again today and since I didn't have court today, I worked from home to avoid crying at work.  


Due to our current financial situation, neither one of us can just walk out the door right now.  Which means that for the time being, Hat's moved into the den--which is actually a second bedroom but which we use as a den--and I'm left in our bedroom, alone.  I had to rearrange the room just to make it so that I could be in there by myself, because leaving it like it always had been felt too horrible.  It still feels horrible, but now it's a different kind of horrible.  It's the kind of horrible where I know it's only like this because the other way was even more horrible. 

"Heartbroken" doesn't begin to cover it

Out of the blue, Hat has decided that he wants a divorce.  I am at a loss as to what to do.  I'm physically sick about it and I haven't eaten since he told me because I don't think I can keep it down.

I didn't notice anything was wrong.  We haven't been fighting.  We've been having a good summer together, going on trips and vacations.  I thought we were doing just fine.  But apparently not.  So, he wants a divorce now. 

In the process of this revelation, he has cut off everyone he knows.  He isn't really talking to his friends much, his dad has told me that he isn't responding to his dad's texts/phone calls, he disabled his facebook account because he "didn't want people to attack" him through facebook, etc., etc.  He also can't explain to me why he wants a divorce other than he's "not happy."  When I ask him what he means by that, he says he doesn't know.  When I asked him if he thought that a divorce would make him happy, he said he didn't know.  He also doesn't have any plan on what he wants to do after we separate--he doesn't know where he will live, how he will pay his bills (since I'm the one who is the financial support in the house at the moment while he's attending school), where he will get health insurance or car insurance, nothing...he hasn't thought about anything practical.  Everyone who knows him is having the same reaction, which is, "What?! This is so out of character for him!!"

The thing that makes this so much worse is that I asked him if we could try to work on it--couple counseling, etc, anything.  He said he didn't have the energy to try.  So, although we've only been married for a little over 2 years, he's just crapping out without even trying.  It's miserable. 

I can't stand how much this hurts.  It's the worse feeling I've ever had in my entire life.  I wish I could make it go away, even just for a few minutes.  I can't even get any relief from sleep--I keep having dreams about this situation!  It's a never ending horror.

Client Archetypes

The court system can quite often feel like a never-ending treadmill.  There's so many people going through it and it never stops.  The interesting thing is that although there are so many people from so many different walks of life, there seems to be some typical characters who make up the public defender clients.  These people are not the majority of clients, by any means.  But, the typical behaviors of these people are so consistent from each one to the next that I've started to create categories for them in my mind.  Here are the 9 categories for the various types of clients:  


1. The Panicker--This client requires a lot of hand-holding (figuratively, not literally).  Every time they call, it is an emergency.  They will leave breathless, anxious, rapid-fire messages about how they must speak with you immediately, regardless of the fact that you've told them many times that you are in court a lot of the day and may not be able to get to their call immediately.  When they can't reach you on your line, they will call the front office staff and leave them the same message--it's an emergency.  If you don't call back within 10 minutes, they will start calling you every 10-20 minutes and either hanging up when the voicemail kicks in or before then.  They are not anxious or panicked in the way you might normally expect a person to be when charged with a crime.  They are anxious and panicked no matter what you do or say, no matter how much you talk with them or reassure them, no matter what you do, they remain panicked.  They are exceptionally needy as clients and are never satisfied, since they constantly are filled with panic. 

Oh yeah, I almost forgot...

One of my non-lawyer friends said something very funny the other day, which I needed to share:

This weekend, I was telling my friend how I had just recently gotten assigned to an attempted first degree murder case.  I said that I'd already done a first degree murder case in February and now I had an attempted murder case in the same year.  My friend's response was, "So, is that like hitting for the cycle* in a lawyer's world?"



*"Hitting for the cycle" is a baseball term that refers to a situation in which a player hits a single, double, triple, and a home run all in the same game.

The "Public Defender" title

So, within the last year or so, the court in one of the counties where I work has put together a panel of volunteer attorneys that are willing to help out by covering low-level misdemeanor cases.  This is to help alleviate some of the less serious cases that are usually assigned to the public defenders.  The volunteer attorneys step in and take on some of these misdemeanors, meaning that the public defenders have fewer cases.  So, it's basically a panel of volunteer defense attorneys that handle cases for public-defender eligible clients to help out the PD's office. 


A few of these panel attorneys call themselves "volunteer public defenders."  This bothers me. It bothers me for a few reasons.  

Best. Video. Ever

This video is hilarious.  I laughed until I cried.  It's got an excessive amount of swearing, but if you've ever owned a cat, it very aptly describes what cats are like.  Seriously, hilarious.