Perpetual Wednesdays

I used to hate Wednesdays.  It is smack in the middle of a working week.  You are tired from working two full days already, yet there’s no respite in sight.

When I was a first year in Hong Kong, I worked on a deal that won the International Financial Law Review Debt Deal of the Year award.  It was a precedent setting transaction with a very complicated structure.  For three months straight, I worked every day with no days off, not a single weekend or holiday, billing an average of over 10 hours per day.

Days started to blur together.  It didn’t matter whether it was Monday or Friday or Sunday.  Every day felt like a Wednesday, so I coined the term “Perpetual Wednesday”.

Over the past six years, I had a number of Perpetual Wednesdays — each like a series of waves, crashing down, relentlessly.

Shortly after I gave my notice, an ex-colleague from Davis Polk who was in my summer class and quit law six months ago emailed me and suggested that we go to the beach together.  Well, today was our outing day.

As I walked towards Penn Station to meet her this morning, it dawned on me that, god willing, I will never have to experience another Perpetual Wednesday unless I choose to.  Heading down to the LIRR station in my beach shorts amidst all the people in suits rushing out of the station towards their offices, I must admit I felt decadent with a bit of schadenfreude.

The beach excursion awakened my senses.  The hot sand, the cool 75° water, the blue sky, and the familiar smell of the SPF lotion mixed with the salty water.

The last time I was at a beach in the United States was when I lived in San Diego before law school.  At that time, I was working from home as a research consultant for an online forum serving the Alzheimer scientific community while applying to law schools.  I used to go to the beach a lot during the day to read research papers and to think.  Looking at the expanse of the ocean and the waves in perpetual motion, I used to feel that life is full of possibilities and that I was ready to take any challenge.

As I was floating in the ocean under the blazing sun, I felt young again.  Yes, life is still full of possibilities.  Will I have the courage to ride the waves?