The Grass is Greener, and More Fragrant, and I Want to Lie in It and Contemplate the Sky

Tomorrow is my last 1L law school final, and then this year will be...over. Oddly, I'm not overjoyed or even that excited (possibly because there is a writing competition almost immediately afterwards, so I can't exult in my freedom just yet).

But really I think my lack of pride and excitement in coming through a stressful, busy year is that I just don't care. I don't care that I finished a year--and I don't want to finish two more. This year saw amazing change in me--I've learned more in one year than I thought possible, I dealt with a financially and emotionally trying robbery experience without falling apart, and I had the strength to get out of a relationship that had been draining me emotionally for some time.

But I don't care about the law. I don't have passion or patience for it, and I don't have interest in it. I worked hard this semester, because that's who I am, but it was just getting through. Getting out of bed became more and more of a struggle, because there didn't seem to be anything to look forward to. I can't remember a time in my life when I've be so doggedly, draggedly unhappy.

And that's ridiculous--I know so many people would love to be in my position. However, it's like your mom telling you to eat your peas because there are starving children in Asia. There's no way they can get my peas, obviously, so the rationale does not hold up. (I will hide them in my pockets and feed them to the dog--haha mom! Tricked you all those years!)

I've spent hours in class this semester looking at English PhD programs, an option I didn't originally pursue because I wanted to make money and it takes so long to get the degree and then to find a job and obtain tenure. But I do have passion for the inconsistencies in Jude the Obscure, and patience for Chaucer and his damn Chanticleer, and interest in the world of academia. I remember when I was excited to go to class, when I loved what I was learning and doing and writing and reading. When I was eager and interested in what the professor had to say. When my peers discussed things with me, not to flaunt their own intellectual superiority, but because they were genuinely enthused about the topic. I miss that passion in myself--the exuberance of education. I took it for granted, that I would always be walking across our beautiful tree-lined campus with a stack of literature in my arms.

Anyway, maybe practice will be different and I'll like being a lawyer. I have to try, because my debt kind of has me in a corner, especially in this economy, and my grades put me in a better position than most. It's just hard to try out for law review, and seek a legal job, and check off all the requisite boxes to create a resume worthy of eventual employment when I'm just going through the motions.

But on a lighter, happier note, my bookstore boy winked at me the last time I was in there. *Fans self.* Actually, he looks a little young for me...maybe I am a law cougar. Ha!