Personal Injury Lawyer

One of my best college friends graduated last spring and over the summer moved to New York City. She’s doing the writing thing (poetry), and meanwhile, temping. She worked for a literary agent for a while, but he died, so the agency closed, and now she works for one of those fancy accident attorney, I think – as a receptionist.

Funny how these things work. She majored in creative writing in school and now she’s working for a personal injury lawyer in NY. She spent her undergrad career reading Sharon Olds and now she’s sorting letters about injury attorney as a tool to live and be able to do art, I know, but the girl working in the patent office loves her job. It has nothing to do with what she thought she was interested in.

Why is everyone so concerned by not knowing what they want to do with their lives at 20? Even our own friends are doing things drastically different from what they studied just months ago in school.

It does worry me that my friend working for the New York personal injury lawyer spends so much time at her job. She doesn’t have any real interest in what this injury attorney sort through paperwork. Grunt work is one thing if it’s a rung on the ladder, but if you’re not interested in being a New York personal injury attorney. Not that she’ll end up that way, but I’d hate to see her drive get diverted. She writes stunning poetry. One of her poems won second place in a big-deal national contest this month. It’s what she’s meant to be doing. And I hope her full-time temp work doesn’t seriously impede or derail that.