Save the drama for your mama

So, this week's Spin Cycle topic is a fun one...DRAMA. Oh, drama drama drama...too many things to say about that one. If any of you haven't caught on, my life is all about drama. Sure, I don't talk about the ins and outs of my job all that much, due to confidentiality and all, but dude, I work in child protective services law. That's about as dramatic as it comes. I used to also do divorce work for a little while, too, and that lead to some interesting dramatic stories. Just like a Jerry Springer episode, let me tell you.

Anyway, so yes, my job is stressful and comes with lots of drama. Every Thursday I have court where we handle about 30 cases any given morning. It's constant stress for about 4 hours every Thursday morning. The stories I hear, the things I read...all just really not so good. I also handle termination of parental rights trials, where I basically tear a parent apart for a good eight hour day to try to get Judge to end the parent/child relationship with that person. There's no way you can walk away from those trials with a warm and fuzzy feeling. It's tiring, it's emotionally draining, but you have to hold it together and keep your composure while you're doing it. I'm pretty good at this. I don't let my emotions show unless something really upsets me, and unfortunately the meter for that has gone way up since working with DCS. It takes a lot to shock me. It shouldn't be that way, but we just get conditioned to certain events. I can hold it in pretty well during the day, but sometimes, on particularly bad days, I come home and just explode. I'm like a ticking time bomb. You never know what will push me over the edge. Poor, T...

Case in point: last year I had a particularly difficult termination trial I prepared for for months, and it was set for two days of trial in mid-March. It meant two days straight, eight or more hours each, of witness after witness saying why this father is not capable of providing for his children. It ended with father on the stand and me tearing him apart. It had to be done, I will say, because there was some bad stuff that went down with respect to these adorable kiddos, but still, it was tough. On the last day of trial, I packed up my stuff, breathed a sigh of relief that it was over, and headed home to T. He had promised me that he would cook dinner for me and would have a glass of wine waiting for me when I got home. (An amazing guy, right?)

So I get home, plop on the couch absolutely exhausted and feeling pretty much numb from the day, and T tells me "hey sweetie, we're having spaghetti for dinner!" My response should have been "oh, T, thank you so much for taking care of dinner for me. I really appreciate it and everything you do to make my life easier" or...something along those lines. My actual response, "spaghetti? Again? All you do is make spaghetti, can't you think of something different?" And no, it didn't stop there. This then turned into Nain bursting into tears and going off about how he's stuck in his ways, how spaghetti is representative of his unwillingness to change or try new things in his life, etc. etc. I think somewhere along the way, in the back of my mind, I knew "um, hey, this is a bit stupid. You're having a fight over spaghetti. Back the truck up there, buddy." I just exploded on T. Let it all out, and he was the unwilling victim. And he's just standing there dumbfounded, spatula in hand, probably thinking that I've officially lost my mind and wondering where we took a turn from what's for dinner to why don't you put my needs first and why is spaghetti so important to you? The fight did end eventually, as is likely when one of the participants has no idea what's going on, and I ate my spaghetti, sniffling and feeling like an all around ass but not ready to admit it just yet. (I'm stubborn like that.)

Now, before you guys judge, I did apologize. Many times. Later that night, I looked at T, and sheepishly asked "um, did we really just have a fight over spaghetti?"

I told one of my coworkers about this fight the next day, and she found it to be hilarious. My new code word whenever I'm stressed about something at work is to just shout "spaghetti!!!!!" Believe me, I've had several times this has been necessary. I'll get off the phone with a particularly difficult public defender, walk into her office and just say "spaghetti" and she knows what's up. It's my way of coping with stress and my way of being dramatic when I can't exactly be dramatic.

Yes, I am a drama queen, and I know that in my line of work, I'm sure there will be many many other days where I let my emotions get the best of me. Maybe when I finally decide to bite the bullet and quit the practice of law for something a little less stressful, like, say, yoga instructing, I won't need to resort to such measures. Until then, I do what I gotta do.

Or, as Mary J puts it, "no more drama."