Free Romance: One Fine Holiday by Amy McAdams

 
     
     
     
    This moment has been the focus of my last six months.
    And it has been six long months.
    In that time I have worked a lot of late nights, been dumped by my long-term but unemployed boyfriend, and was the passenger in a minor car accident. 
    Through all that, the thought of this moment has gotten me through.
    There have not been many highlights in the past six months.  In fact, there have not been many highlights in the past five years.  Life has been slowly chugging past, and I have forgotten how to enjoy it.
    Since graduating law school top of my class, I have been employed at one of New York’s finest law firms.  I fought so hard to win this position and I was over the moon when I was given the nod.  It was everything that I dreamed of through school.
    But what they fail to tell you at law school, or in the job interviews for that matter, is that you are not signing up for a job.  You’re signing up for a life. 
    They take it all. 
    They take your lunch hours, your nights, your weekends and your holidays.  Work consumes every part of your life until you are thinking about it on the train, in your bed and at your family Christmas lunch. 
    And if you’re not thinking about it, you are left behind. 
    Nobody cares if you’re left behind in my world.  The firm chews through the lives of employees and spits them out the other end.  Not one of my colleagues will stop to help if I fall behind in work.  Nope.  You’re kicked off the team the second you fall behind.  But that’s the price I pay for the privilege of working for one of the most respected law firms in the country.
    I have made the commitment that I will forget about work over the next week. 
    I will forget about the constant stream of emails.  I will forget about the endless piles of work.  I will forget about my clients and their worries.
    It is the first time in five years that I have taken a one week break.  Before now, I never had the time for a holiday.
    My now ex-boyfriend, Nick, was a jerk.  If he wasn’t drinking, he was complaining about how hard the world was.  He was able to keep down a job for around two weeks at a time, and then he wouldn’t show up again.  He said that the jobs were bad for his soul.
    We dated for seven years.  Seven years of my life was wasted on him! 
    We met as students in college.  He was a philosophy major and I was a law student.  As a student, I was smitten by him.  He seemed so worldly and smart. 
    So wonderful and funny.
    As a young woman still finding my way in the world, I fell in love.  Nick was my first real love.  My only love. 
    I was geeky, but hard-working throughout school.  I never had the pleasure of being the object of attraction for men, and so when a skinny, long-haired, older and wise philosophy student showed interest in me – wow!  I was hooked.
    My parents never liked Nick.  In fact, my father hated him.  My mother thought he was scruffy but she would support me even if I started dating a frog.  She would support me through anything.
    My parents raised me to be an independent woman.  They taught me how to be smart.  They showed me how to be successful.  And I am all that and more.
    But I’m lonely.
    Nick and I had been distant for over a year.  We barely talked, and when we did, he would shout about how my job was corrupt and a part of the evil corporate beast. 
    He sapped my confidence bit by bit over the past year.  I was never overly confident but now, I doubt myself even when ordering coffee.  I feel down more times than most. 
    Nick would tell me how bad my clothes were and explain how dumb I was.  He would yell that because I hadn’t read all the works of the philosopher Nietzsche then I couldn’t possibly understand the world.
    I held onto that relationship because it was all I had to stop me from being alone at night.
    He used to make me feel good.  He used to make me feel sexy.  But after the years past, he would belittle me