Out on the street...

... the traffic's not jumping. Nope, not at 5:40am, it's more like that scene in Vanilla Sky when Tom Cruise is in Times Square and not a soul is in sight... except only it's pitch black because the sun has not yet risen.
I used to be able to sing along to Dolly's hit, 9-5, at the Duplex, but now I can only sing along half-heartedly as I no longer belong to that group, well, for now anyway. As a paralegal, I used to work normal hours, i.e. 9-6 or 10-7, whichever I decided upon waking up... NOW, I am up by 5:20, sigh, AM. I do hit snooze, which affords me an extra 8-9 minutes of that 1/2 sleep and 1/2 awake time where I contemplate what I might wear, how the day might go, whether I should get up to make coffee instead of snoozing, or about the things I'd rather be doing aside from going to work ... you know what I'm talking about, you probably just do it a an hour or two later, maybe even three... So, at 5:28 or 5:29, I rise, reach for the remote and turn on NBC's early news... There's no Meredith, Matt, Al, or Anne; Instead I have to settle for Darlene Rodriguez and Rob Morrison. I don't have anything against either Darlene or Rob; but they don't go outside (probably because it's dark) and do fun interviews or get to report on concerts out on the plaza, or have Kristen Chenoweth belting out Wicked numbers... Nope, just reports on yesterday's news, and updates on the traffic and weather. Darlene and Rob have yet to tell me anything that I haven't already heard about from the day before; it makes me wonder sometimes why I turn them on at all while I'm brushing my teeth and getting dressed. Perhaps I should just turn on re-runs of Saved by the Bell, or keep the XM Classics channel on that I sleep to. I do enjoy Rob and Darlene's passion though, they really try to act like they're telling you something for the first time, when in actuality, I'm almost certain, they are reading the same tele-prompter scripts from the 11 o'clock news that aired the previous night.
After I get about 15-20 minutes of regurgitated news from Rob and Darlene, I'm heading out the door to the darkened street, where maybe I see 1 other person. Mind you, this person probably is only up for a special reason and has probably not seen this time of day in ages. I can tell when someone is not a regular to the up at 5:30am game. I can tell because when I meet their gaze, they have this look in their eye where they want to relate to you, because they're appalled to be up so early and they have a look that says they want to share that shock with you... if their look could talk it would say something like "Can you believe we're up!?! How crazy is this!?" ... The regulars, instead, exchange a knowing glance... that says something more like... "Yup, we get up before the sun rises." it's just more of knowing, understanding look rather than the surprise offered by the keeper of normal hours that people are actually up at such a ridiculous time.
It's 9am as I write this line... and I just turned around to look out the window from my desk hoping to see sun... it is light out, but it's gray and snowing, awesome. I guess getting up so early wouldn't be so bad if I loved what I was doing. I don't hate it per se, as it's a pretty decent paycheck and it affords me the ability to get out of work at 3:30 and enjoy a non-congested, calming commute home where I can read and relax instead of being sandwiched between people with briefcases, umbrellas, etc prodding me at every motion the train makes. This I love. So despite not liking the job as much as I would have hoped, there are some good benefits.
I suppose I should say what it is I currently am doing then... Well, currently, I work as a PR/community relations consultant on city/state-funded city development/preservation/restoration projects -- i.e. I deal with people adversely affected by said project, be it noise from construction, a crappy easement deal they might be bitter about, etc... my job is to talk with, meet with these people, compile their concerns and then try to find ways to mitigate their problems while trying to explain to them why their stress and anger is not being caused for baseless reasons... Honestly, I would enjoy this, if in fact there were problems to address... Instead I've been assigned to deal with the revitalization of the BQE, it's a highway that connects Brooklyn and Queens for you non-New Yorkers, and the stretch being repaired/expanded/made better, is in a lower-income community... I thought, great!! I could be a voice for and advocate for the little person; something I have a passion for. Despite my excitement to get my hands dirty and jump right into it, there have been next to no complaints, or at least not major ones that require much brain power to solve. So far I've helped get a church's parking lot entrance opened up more for better traffic flow (I know, I know, pretty big stuff); have dealt with a man who is not happy with his backyard having been cut in half and doesn't quite get that the $100,000 easement he was paid is compensation for that -- he calls a lot to ask me the same questions or to ask that I try to get the DOT to do other things, sometimes these requests are reasonable, like finishing the fence they put up to keep out trespassers. That one, I get, and I've been working on ... Oh, and I solved the problem of getting a no parking sign put up for a family whose driveway gets blocked a lot due to the limited parking; so yeah, pretty much I thought I'd get a saving the world type of feeling from this job, but it's not been that at all. It's disheartening because the engineers and contractors that are being paid by the city to undertake this could really care less about the people who are affected, and that makes it tough to get them to respond; and since my firm is hired by them as a consultant, they are the client... you can do the math. I guess I envisioned more empathetic engineers and contractors that I'd be dealing with, and not these tunnel-visioned, seemingly misanthropic people who only act concerned when compelled to by regulatory guidelines or laws that require them to. So that's kind of sad to me, and is making me a little jaded.
So the downside is that I have to get up early, and don't like to go to bed early and that I'm not enjoying it like I thought that I would. The upside, is that this job is nowhere near as stressful or as demanding of my time as being a paralegal was. I work a 40 hour week now, not a 50-60 hour week; I go home at 3:30 every day, and not between the hours of 7pm and up until the wee hours of the morning into the next day; and I am compensated in the way of salary the same that I was with the firm... only I just have to work the 40 hours per week, not the 50-60. I get out at 3:30, which as I said affords me a nice commute home, and enables me to get things done that need doing. I'm finally going to join a gym, which I had no time for before. I'm going to have "me-time" and do things that I enjoy, like read, perhaps volunteer, find a part-time second job to go to after work one or two times a week. These are options I simply did not have working at the law firm. And as much as I like to complain about the getting up early, It is satisfying to me to get to see the sun rise every morning -- I hadn't seen the sun rise since my high school days, and it's really a remarkable thing to experience each day. I feel better now that I'm not worried or under pressure, like when I was at the law firm and was involved, although minimally, in filing briefs, motions for multi-district litigations where millions and billions are at stake -- I didn't realize how much that stressed me out, and how much a stressed out lawyer wore me out day to day -- how much I thought about and worried about whether I did everything right after leaving the office and about what the consequences would be if I hadn't. Don't get me wrong, I had lots of downtime as a paralegal, and at times it was easy and boring and could have been carried out by a primate -- but even our minimal involvement in the way of organizing documents for a brief, although sometimes seemingly mindless, had to be done perfectly... and if it wasn't, you would have some pretty pissed off lawyers who would have to tell soon to be pissed off clients that something went wrong... mind you this never happened, where something cataclysmic occurred with anything I was involved with, but the stress caused by the thought that it might or very well could, was really taxing in a lot of ways. So, right, I guess that's just to say, I don't regret leaving the law firm, and don't miss it -- I'm just a little annoyed that I don't enjoy the new gig as much as I had hoped. Like I said however, there are benefits and pros to this job even if it's just temporary and proves to be just a paycheck and not extremely fulfilling and rewarding. Perhaps the rewarding aspect will be that I can be good to myself, and do things I've always wanted to do, but never had time for... So, I guess I am happy that so long as I am at this job, I will be able to help some people, despite it being in minimal ways, and I will also be able to look more into taking care of me, and being good to myself for once by engaging in things that will fulfill me... maybe that's not the best situation, but I'm becoming more ok with it.
We'll see how this shapes up as the new year commences, I'll keep you posted, as I typically have very little to do in the hours from 7am - 9am in this office, aside from checking schedules and sending a few faxes... after that it's time to sit with a cup a coffee, read some articles, and lately, write blogs... which, isn't so bad to be honest.
So to close this out, here are some things I will do in the new year with this new schedule (these are not resolutions, as they are spawned simply from more free time and not solely based out of a desire to improve myself over the new year):
1. Read more
2. Actually be able to go to a gym and not be relegated to doing sit-ups and the like on my bedroom floor.
3. Get my food shopping and other errands completed before 5pm!
4. Find something to fill my time after work, be it going to the gym, volunteering, reading, walking through the park, or anything that might strike my fancy.
5. Focusing on the things I enjoy, focusing on me and the direction of my life.
6. Think a lot more, write more, become more self-aware.
7. Not be stressed because of work (what an amazing thing)
8. Making more time for my friends, and thereby being a better friend
9. (If I make it to beach weather days at this job) Getting out early to get a jump on the weekend and traveling to the beach, or any other destination; and getting out early on weekdays to enjoy leisurely spring/summer afternoons!! (this excites me to no end).
10. Take another stab at quitting smoking after my lot of cigs run out that I purchased from DC