The Hardest Thing I've Ever Done

I haven’t posted in over a week, there is a good reason.

Last week I went up to Chicago, and I cleaned out my old office. My lease is up, it had to be done. It really was bittersweet.

This is my old office.

I first moved into the place in 2012. It was in the same building as my dad’s dental office. It was nice, I could visit my family during lunch. It was close to my house. But most importantly, it was where I built my law practice, which became a key part of my personal identity.

The best feature of my office? I had a bar. I was the boss, nobody could tell me I couldn’t. It was awesome, disguised as a bank of classic books.

(My Bar)

Then things changed. In October of 2018, my dad retired, so I lost some of that connection. A year and some change later, Covid-19 happened, and I spent a month and a half practically never leaving my house. As I stated earlier, I became depressed because I felt part of my identity was being taken away.

Come this past spring and we decide to move to Nashville. For me, the hardest part of it was giving up my law practice. When I first came down here, I still had a strong connection to my practice because I still had a lot of cases that needed to be wrapped up. I didn’t even bring my office with me, just a few files I needed at the time. I already planned to make a few trips up to Chicago to take care of business. My lease wasn’t up until the end of September, so I had time to get stuff done.

Then last week it changed. With my lease ending, I went back to Chicago, packed up all of my files and personal effects and left.

Here is my car with my office packed in it. You can see my beloved bar. I drove everything to Nashville. It hit me hard, but unexpectedly, not all of it was bad.

Part of the difficulty of change is acceptance of the reality that you cannot go back. So this was my moment, the burning of my ships. This means I have to move forward. In particular, since I don’t have a practice, or even a Tennessee law license (yet), I realized that my future, my new identity, is in my startup, in M2M Legal. So with this melancholy is a strong sense of hope and adventure.

I still have my bar, I can pour myself a drink, and this time it will be to the future.