Lately, I have felt like I'm on a teeter totter of emotion. I first started law school feeling very intimidated, scared, and anxious, because at orientation I felt like everyone was smarter than I am and I was out of my league. But then classes started and suddenly I realized...hey, this is school. I'm good at school. I can do this. And I like it.
And then came last week. I'm not really sure what was going on--the work wasn't really any harder than it has been, there wasn't more of it or anything like that--but suddenly I desperately HATED law school. Actually, hate isn't even the right word. I was despondent. I was reading a case, noticing the citations and realizing the work I was doing (and cursing) in my writing class was never going to end. That's part of being a lawyer. And I suddenly found myself on tearing up in the library, because as I pictured myself doing all that work and being a lawyer and arguing cases in court...I did not want to do that. All I wanted to see myself doing was being married and having kids.
I'm not saying wanting to be married and having kids is a bad thing. It is, however, a bad thing to realize you don't want to be a lawyer, not even a little bit, when you are in law school. It was like a quarter-life crisis (thank you, John Mayer, for the terminology) and it honestly left me in tears. In the law library. The hopelessness carried through the whole week, making me more susceptible to frustration when I didn't understand a case or when my teacher sprang last-minute extra readings on us.
I got a paper back from my T.A. that was just ripped apart. Almost every sentence had something crossed out or added or a comment saying something like, "Good, not great." Then I got a paper back from my teacher that got a "check." The possible grades were check minus, check, and check plus. And I got a check. On a paper. That doesn't happen to me. It meant I was "right where I was supposed to be" on the paper. But I wasn't exceeding. And then I wanted even more to quit. Why go through all that awful, stressful work if I didn't even want to be a lawyer?
I spent a week on the verge of tears at every moment I did anything school-related. Even if it wasn't hard, I didn't want to do it. I didn't know what to do. Drop out? I'm already tens of thousands of dollars in debt. What would I do if I drop out? I'm not really qualified in anything. Cue more hopelessness. Other stuff, non-school stuff, was going on at the same time to make me wonder, "Why is everything falling apart at the same time? I can't do this!"
And then today I realized...yeah, I can. I don't know where or how this epiphany came. All I know is I was in the library, working on my paper after finishing my reading for contracts and property, listening to some David Archuleta (don't judge), and the hopelessness was gone. I finished the section of my paper I was working on, sent it to my T.A., and left, and as I walked home, I felt amazing. I felt like skipping. I have no idea where you came from, renewed love for law school, but I'm glad you're here. Please won't you stay a while? Maybe...another 2 and a half years? Thanks.
In other news, I went to Rexburg this weekend. It was splendid, despite some minor old-roommate-holding-hands-with-boy-I-like drama. (Nothing I'm not used to at this point.) I think I should probably stop visiting Rexburg so often, because it is not getting easier to leave. I get a stomachache when I think of how I don't live there any more. I'm such a wuss. And a slow adjuster. However, what I should do and what I will do are not the same. I have no intention of reducing my Rexburg visits. I love that place.
My life is really not terribly exciting. I mean, it is to me, because it's my life and I like it--quite a bit, really--but I don't go on wild adventures or have admirers fawning over me at every turn. But I get to learn a ton and laugh a lot and I'm happy. :)
