Today a friend told me he was optimistic. Another told me he was hopeless. For my own part, I have been painfully closer to hopelessness than to optimism these last couple of weeks. I have meditated each morning with positive effects; it is probably the only thing keeping me from plunging into the pit of despair. I pressed my optimistic friend on his outlook, and he said he believed in the American spirit and that as a nation we would rise again. His confidence struck me and forced me to consider how a divorce lawyer could be optimistic during such dire times? After all, we divorce lawyers are rarely optimistic creatures.
I spoke later in the day with a client who is a well-known music producer. She and her husband have been deeply stressed about their marriage for several months, both wanting to get divorced and both wanting to preserve their assets. It is not a complicated divorce in terms of the division of assets, but the existential questions being asked by both have made it more complex: “Where will each of us live? How will we finish our residential lease? How will we share the dogs (there are no kids in this marriage)?”
