Once again at crossroads: I'm not sure if I want to go back to the life of a litigation associate (at my age, my body isn't going to take those kinds of hours and stress for many more years -- so if I were to do any of it I'd better go back now, while I can still take the punishment) -- or to stay in law but look for in-house legal positions (that would probably mean compliance work in a large multinational unless I can find a non-profit) -- or, there's leaving law altogether for something else, consultancy, freelance editing, whatever that might be.

I also know it's more than about just staving off poverty from day to day; a job per se is not what I want or need; work has never been centering for me the way it is for so many people, not even professionally satisfying -- because for me personal satisfaction is in building literary and intellectual knowledge, and the professional exercise of intellectual freedom -- and I can do that even without a job; as a matter of fact most jobs run counter to those impulses; but about putting myself back in a place, for a few years, where i can regain the freedom that comes with financial independence, and replenish my savings for the next bout of absolute freedom. And that uncertainty, not knowing what I truly want, and the unwillingness to think through my options and to set a course -- is making it hard for me to focus (I'm terrible at that at the best of times) or to be practical. What I have instead is formless dread for the future (mild), inertia (very strong), and the sense that that yes, probably I shall find some way forward (as one does) and there is no hurry yet, but that there will be drudgery involved one way or another, and that it may be a long time before I could come back to this way of living that I hold dear and am grateful for and am not in the least inclined to give up yet.