WHAT NOW?

Last night I went to a bar that I hadn’t been to in a few months. I wanted a drink and the bar environment but I didn’t want to go back to one of the haunts that I frequented with other members of the firm. I took a seat in dark lonely spot at the far end of the bar, did a couple of tequila shots then settled in with a bottle of beer. The roar of a sea of cheering soccer fans blared from a TV above the bar. I tried to get into the game but my thoughts kept returning to not having a job. At some point I heard a group at a table in a far corner of the bar. They sounded like they were having fun and I wished I that I was in the state of mind to have joined them. Then I heard a familiar voice. I couldn’t see any faces through the dim lighting so I got up and went toward the table when someone said my name. “Hank! Oh my God! I can’t believe it’s you!” I immediately recognized the face. It was my old friend from college, Ben. We went to college together and both wanted to be lawyers but he went to law school on one coast and I on the other. We kept in touch in the beginning but eventually other priorities took over and we hadn’t been in touch for a few years since. Ben invited to me join his him and his friends. I was the only white guy in a group of about ten black men and women. I could tell the gathering was a celebration of some sort so I tried to adjust my sad disposition to be more consistent with theirs. I asked Ben what the occasion was and he said it was his birthday.

We drank, ate and laughed for hours until the bar closed. Before we parted ways I asked Ben what he was up to. He’s a public defender. Of course he asked me what I was doing. I hesitated and then sighed. Ben could tell it wasn’t good. I thought about whether I should tell him my bad news. It was embarrassing and humiliating. But Ben had been a good friend back in college so I told him that I had just quit my job as an associate at a law firm. “What now?” he asked, trying to sound positive. I said, “I don’t know yet.” That was when it hit me. The realization that for the first time in my life I didn’t have a plan for my life hit me like a boulder. I had jumped off of the secure path of my successful career into the abyss and now I had been reduced to confessing my foolish act to an old friend.

It was late and we both wanted to go home. Ben handed me his business card and I wrote my cell phone number on the back of my old law firm card and gave it to him. We both promised to keep in touch.