on this day

Facebook just informed me that on this day in 2009, I posted:

moving to Alaska TOMORROW! better get packin'

Funny how 2 years can feel like a lifetime but I remember so well the wreck I was. It had been such a eventful, stressful and chaotic summer: wedding, graduation, moving home, funeral, studying for the bar, taking the bar, funeral, wedding. In a way I think I needed Alaska. (thought you'd never hear that, did ya?) I needed space to recover and digest it all.

I tell people that if it hadn't been for the recession, I would never have gone to Alaska. But there's more to it than that. Sure, the fall of 2008 was a pretty scary time to be looking for a job, but it goes back to the fall of 2005. I stood at a crossroads of sorts. I felt pretty strongly that I should go to law school but I was terrified of taking on so much debt. I worried about how I'd ever repay it and how the financial burden would shape my future. And then there was this moment, when I thought to myself, if you can do law school, you can repay the debt. It was then that I decided to put my financial future in God's hands. I felt that he wanted me to go to law school and if that required that I assume debt then surely he'd provide a way for me to repay it.

And so, in 2008 when the economy was in the toilet, I wasn't so much worried about finding a job. Okay, I was a little worried, but I knew that everything would work out, I just didn't know how. I also knew that if I was going to place my trust in God, I had to trust him all the way. That meant applying for jobs in Alaska when the director of career services advised me to do so. As I mailed my applications to Alaska, I was terrified that I'd get a job. I was terrified that I'd somehow get stuck in Alaska and never be able to leave.*

When I got a phone call weeks later offering me a clerkship in Fairbanks I freaked out a little - in fact I screamed as a hung up the phone. I didn't know whether to laugh or to cry, but I knew that I would take the job. And I'm glad that I did.


*Oh, past self, there is so much I'd like to tell you - but most importantly, don't worry, you won't get stuck in Alaska. And don't let yourself fall in love with that one guy, you'll know him when you meet him.