That's all she wrote for first year. This morning the majority of the 1L class, including me, handed in our journal packets. A week's worth of schoolwork after finals — not something most of us care to repeat anytime soon. But it's done, and so officially is our first year of law school! It's quite a relief, to be sure.
Try as I might, I don't know that I'll come up with anything profound to say about the first year in retrospect. It was harder than I thought it would be, and not for the reasons I had expected it would be hard. Grading on a curve makes people more competitive, yet we all seek validation from our peers — we want to know that we're on the right track. Friendships change constantly; time breathes down our necks, moving faster than it ever has before. We all think differently now, a progression that's only just begun. We choose our words carefully because we have to. People are quick to point out errors here, to find faults. But it's not a flaw, or at least I don't see it that way; I believe it's of necessity that we parse and issue-spot. As different as our paths will be, those will certainly be our jobs.
I can't say whether I like law school; somehow, it now seems like the wrong question. There is too much going on here to like or dislike it all. But there I go, parsing already. I'll never be the same again. None of us will.
I've packed the bare necessities in my car. Hello, summer.
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1 comment:
I knew I wouldn't be the only one pondering the meaning of the day. I'm glad you're the writer among us. If I wrote a blog, it would spew melancholy. Such as this:
“not with a bang, but a whimper”
my year has come to pass. it is “our” year, of course, but I’m too tired and lacking in grandiosity to contextualize “our” year. I look around this room, these walls that have been mine for a year, this silence that cuts like a knife, that window, where underneath the chickens cluck incessantly at dawn. I can only speak for myself. how will I remember this year? I suppose it’s hard for me to see this as the end of something, as any type of demarcation at all. law school did not embody my struggles this year. my pain, my stress, my heartache, my hunger, my tears, my disappointments, my waking thoughts, my silent prayers, my desperation, my utterances in the dark, my need, my want…they had nothing at all to do with criminal law or torts or contracts or grades or gunners or marshall-wythe. they do not end here. I don’t emerge from something less into something greater, from something hard to something soft. I am not reborn today. I wish. if only.
I suppose I hoped to “end this year” in triumph, a victory far removed from grades and ranking and truthfully, even a sophisticated understanding of “the law.” I wonder if I’m selling myself short by not giving into this small but wonderful thing. this tiny miracle. this end in itself. I wonder if it is fair to allow my greater grievances to overshadow this arguably admirable feat. alas, I can lie to you all, but not to myself.
and so…my today is just another day. a day preceded by darker, louder days. a day that does not solve the puzzles of those other days. a day not marked by relief, but agitation. a day that does not lift the weight of the year off my shoulders. my burdens that began before this year came will continue after it goes.
your joy is my greatest joy today. for that alone, my darling ones, I am truly glad.
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