I already know that I don’t want to quit my job. I already know that I don’t want to find a new career. But I feel it’s important to give myself space to consider what it would mean if I did. By giving myself permission to start over, I’m hoping as I continue to heal and continue to choose this career, it will truly feel like a choice I am making. I have to allow myself to realize I want something different. To not assume what I will do simply because it feels like I have to.

I realize the only reason to leave this job is to completely detach my life from all things justice. Because otherwise, I love this work, this job, these coworkers. The only reason to leave is to get away from justice.

So it’s interesting that even when I explore what I would do instead, many of the ideas I have involve justice and the system still. At the end of the day, it’s something I care a lot about, especially with the experiences I have. That’s probably also why it’s so hard right now, but the truth is, removing myself from it isn’t going to change that I care. That I’ll think about it. That I’ll wish I could make it better.

I recognize some of the other things I could imagine doing may also drain the life out of me, the way work is currently but didn’t used to.

My emotional mind wants the peace and joy I imagine by leaving it behind. I feel relief imagining a life where I am a clockmaker. But what else I feel is devastation. I am sure that if court reporting was no longer what I did, I would find something else. But life without it feels like a loss.

My logical mind recognizes that I am a person who requires stability. Any career where I do not have that would be exceedingly difficult for me. I also value money. I would not want to be in a field where I struggle financially, even if it would be easier on me in other ways.

My wisdom tells me that things have already gotten better. That they’re trending upwards. That probably it’s going to be okay.

My fear is that even if things are okay at work, it still may never feel the same, and the unknown of that scares me.

My therapist reminds me that I’m allowed at any point in time to change my mind about what I’m doing. I don’t need to decide right now that I am not quitting my job and never will.

There are also ways for me to change the balance of how much time and energy I devote to work. I can hire people to help me with transcripts. I can see if there’s a way to shift my relationship with work in a way that consumes me less. This is not an all or nothing, now or never thing.

I love the act of court reporting. I love the place I work and the people I work with. I am struggling with the work itself and all it reminds me of. But up until now, I’ve felt so lucky that I found this career. I’ve considered it the perfect job for me. The way I can consider a day successful without ever speaking to anyone on days where I’m feeling anxious and not up for being a person. The way it makes me feel confident. The independence of it. And, yes, the way I care about it, the way it interests me and feels important.

I’m not sure if I’ve fully given myself permission to quit. But maybe that’s less because I’m afraid to and more because I already know within me that I don’t want to.

One of my first days back at work post-settlement, I felt overcome with recognizing this is MY courthouse, not that place where hard things happened. These are MY people, not the many men in that courtroom who had so much power over my life. I also felt unbearable empathy for the litigants all around me.

I’m going to care. I’m always going to care.

As much as I need permission to quit, I need permission to stay, knowing that I’m part of something broken, something causing trauma to other people, even with the best of intentions.

My job is to bear witness. To record it accurately. So that people like me, people like my abuser, people unlike either of us, can have a true and complete record of what happened in these life altering hearings, so that there can be oversight, accountability. My role serves to protect people’s rights. Sometimes the state of people’s rights is incorrect. Sometimes the wrong calls are made and affirmed.

The role I play is ultimately neutral. The care I feel is human, good, but also something that times like now, I do wish I could trade. There are rare times my care is able to be put to meaningful use in this role.

The thing about the record is no matter what the laws are, the record would not change. What happened, happened. I am the creator of the evidence. In an adversarial system, my role is one of the only ones whose goal is truly truth. I certify every transcript I produce from my notes. This is what happened. It is not for me to say if it was right, just that it is.

Maybe there’s something to that.

Isn’t that what I’m working through? Accepting what happened. As a court reporter, some of the difficulty right now is in seeing the system succeed for others where it failed me, some is in seeing how the system fails others as it did me and worse, and not being able to change it. As a human being who’s been through what I’ve been through, some of the difficulty is in knowing I can do nothing to change it. I know that eventually, I just need to accept it. Feel all the things, but accept the unshakeable reality that it was what it was.

You want to know one thing that frustrated me so much in my case? How much happened off the record.

Maybe there’s something to that.

(Later)

I realized that part of what is so hard is what is triggering me at work right now is actually when lawyers are doing a GOOD job, when people’s rights ARE being protected, when the system is working well. That is difficult.

But if I think rationally about that, then it almost seems like me walking away from this career is out of resentment. We all know there’s two kinds of people, right, in the aftermath of adversity? The ones who never want anyone else to go through what they did and the ones who bitterly don’t want anyone to have it better than they did. I don’t want to be the latter. I don’t want to justify leaving essentially because I no longer want to protect people’s rights since no one protected mine.

At the same time, if it just hurts too much, that is a valid reason to reconsider what I’m doing. I’m not at that point. I hope to never be. But I’m giving myself permission to honor myself if a time ever comes where it is too painful. And with that, I can say with certainty that in this present moment, I am choosing healing, choosing to continue this career, fighting for my relationship with it, believing in a future where even if things never feel how they used to at work, they will feel okay.