“Aren’t You on Sabbatical?”

 Why this Question Touches a Nerve in Me

It’s been about a month since I gave up my law office and majority of caseload.  I focus my energy on my family and myself, rather than my clients.   Everyday, I have taken my boys to bus stop and picked them up in afternoon.   My days are from 8:30am to 4:00 pm.   I do my things between these hours.   I made a commitment to my boys and myself.   I am a stay at home mom.   They no longer ask who is picking them up at bus stop, as they know I will be there.    They no longer mistakenly call me Jenny, our former babysitter.   That always hurt the most.   Those slips of the tongue told me that my boys spent more time with babysitter than me.   It was not making me happy.   So I changed how I lived my life.  

Yesterday, I was on the local news debating teens and sexting.   I am firmly in the camp that this shouldn’t be a criminal act.   The lawmakers who make these laws and prosecutors, who enforce laws, are not in touch with teens today.   Lawmakers and prosecutors did not grow up in a technological era.   We didn’t have cell phones or Facebook.   Our flirting as teens came in form of written notes passed out in school.   Today, flirting includes sexting.   It’s time for lawmakers and prosecutors to understand this.   Charging these teens with child sexually abusive material (child porn) is ridiculous.   These aren’t old men taking photos of young children for deviant sexual purpose.   That’s the purpose of the law.   Not to stigmatize our teens as either criminals or victims when they are neither.

So I was very excited to go on local news to debate this.   I put it on Facebook.    Two friends of mine posted on my wall, “What happened to the sabbatical?”  I didn’t expect this question.   For some reason, it made me mad.   I felt very defensive.   My one friend realized that I was defensive and he apologized to me.   He didn’t mean any disrespect.  

In turn, I apologized to him.    I overreacted based on my own personal issues.   Not that my friends were challenging me or calling me a hypocrite.   It was the hypocrite part that really bothered me.   I felt like a hypocrite.   Didn’t I publically proclaim my sabbatical and stay at home mom status?   Now I’m working.  I’m talking out both sides of my mouth.  

I’ve come to realize that I’m not a hypocrite.   I am doing what I want now.   No more being a slave to my overhead at the office, having to take cases I don’t want or not passionate in.  

What is a Sabbatical?   Merriam-Webster dictionary defines sabbatical as:

            a period of time during which someone does

            not work at his or her regular job and is able

            to rest, travel, do research, etc.

That’s exactly what I’m doing.   I’m not a hypocrite (and it’s important for me to realize I’m calling myself a hypocrite, not my friends).    I am taking time off the grind of the office and work.   Of waiting in court for two hours, to put a 5 minute appearance on the record.   I can’t tell you how frustrating and stressed those mornings would make me.   A sabbatical is only when one is not doing their regular job.   It doesn’t mean that a person can’t work or focus on their passions whether it is law related or gardening.  A sabbatical opens up the world.   It gives one a chance to do something different, to take a risk.   To re-energize.  

Another thing that bothered me about yesterday is the reaction from colleagues about my Facebook post.   Here is my post:

Watch me on Fox2 News tonight between 10:00-10:30pm.  Doing Let it Rip with 

 Charlie Langton. I'll have a thing or two to say about sexting and the possibility of 

 teens getting charged in rochester hills. Great thing about sabbatical is I don't care so                              much of who I may offend with my viewpoints. Sexting should not be a crime. 

The    prosecutors charging these cases are my age or older. They have never lived 

in era where flirting includes sexting. And anal sex doesn't mean you lose virginity.             

Or rainbow parties where girls give blow jobs to boys with dif color lipstick. 

This is happening with our kids. We need sex Ed and therapy NOT criminalization.

I received “warnings” from three different colleagues about how I’m going to “goad” the prosecutor into charging these kids with a crime.   I really don’t understand what I said in this post to make them feel like that.   It might have been my statement that I don’t care anymore what people think about what I say.   That statement is so unlike me and unexpected.  So maybe people thought I was losing my mind and I might go off on the air.   

I did not mean in this way.   What I meant, and one friend posted it accurately, is that I am going to speak my mind on what I think is fair in just in criminal justice system.   I am not worried anymore that I may say something wrong and offend a prosecutor or blow a case for client.   I’ve come to realize if I speak from my heart and brain, passion and facts combined, I am powerful.   It is when I censor myself, when I’m worried how my comments are taken by another, I lose some of my power.  

I also think I’m smart enough not to blow up a case for a criminal defense attorney, even if I’m not the attorney of record.  

Yesterday, I had many lessons.   First, never try to figure out why a person wrote something about you.   Don’t try to get in their mind as it’s impossible and we are likely to misconstrue what other person meant.   Instead, ask yourself, “Why did that comment affect me so much?”   Look inside yourself.  

Too many times we unfairly personalize comments others make.  We create anger and hurt in ourselves when we don’t even know why a person is making a statement.  It’s not about the statement, it’s how it makes you feel.  

Sabbatical, to me, is doing what makes me happy.   This in turn, makes those around you happy.   My boys are so much happier and there is less fighting in the house now that I’m home.   My boys are picking up on my happiness.  I will continue to teach trial skills, make TV appearances, and have a case or two.   Criminal defense law is in my blood and I would never be happy if I completely gave up law and reforming the sex offender registry.

This year I will work on not taking other’s comments personally.   Not to read into a comment except for tapping into myself to see why the comment affected me in the way it did.  If I do this, I know I will be even happier.