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Day 17: Living My Dream

The Prompt: I was born to _________...


(You can't say, 'write' or refer to any genre or literary discipline, or describe any form of writing.)





I was born to fight for justice. It has always been so. I was drawn to the lawyer/judge shows even when I was still trying to figure it all out in high school. As I moved through the college years, I had continuous re-enforcement that I needed to work with the courts.


In high school, I discovered that I could not figure out chemistry to save my life. The sciences were eliminated as a career choice. So off I go to college with no clue what I wanted to do, other than it had to do with the law. Then I discovered early on that if I did anything with taxes, I would be in jail. (Those of you who grew up with fill-in-the-blank tax computer software have no idea how scary taxes used to be.) So squeaking by the tax class taught me that I was too chicken to be a lawyer. But I could be a paralegal. And that is still my day job. I work in a small law firm for a lawyer who is a civil rights activist by passion and a contracts/litigation lawyer to pay the bills.


If you have a choice to play in the field that you love, it will never seem like work. Working in or around the law enlivens me and leaves me satisfied that I have helped one more person tell their story. Most people who have been wronged just want to be heard and want someone in authority to say, “You are right, that should not have happened to you. I will help you.”