Three Years in a Life

What can I say about the last three years of law school that will be anything but trite or cliché? Not much probably. Were I to synthesize the many, many ups and many, many downs beginning in August of 2004 until today (my very last day of law school, ever) they would provide an account of essentially the same ebb and flow experienced by so many others who’ve survived their early to mid-20’s intact. Everybody’s story is the same, but everybody’s story is individually felt. See? It’s cliché and trite already. This is the account, in brief, of my three years. The best and worst imaginable- but somehow, aren’t they all? So this is my story. It is boring and it is typical and it is mine.

I stepped off the airplane from California for the very first time into New England, not knowing a soul, carrying all my possessions in two suitcases pushing the airline’s weight limit to the brink. Boston Logan International Airport was like my Ellis Island. I hailed my first cab ever, and away we went to a new house, a new school, a new life. That first year is something of a blur, though if pressed I could probably remember every little detail- it’s just that I don’t want to. The law school’s social scene has been excruciatingly awkward and among my sorrows in these years has been not making more, better friends. Perhaps if my first and closest friend hadn’t become more than he should have been I'd have fared better; but if my heart was on the chopping block it was certinaly me who put it there. When the guillotine blade fell, a lot of things brought it down, but nothing more than by my own complicity. That’s the hard truth it’s taken me the successive years to accept. What is it about hindsight?

Boston has been my launching pad, the place in which to dive head-first into my young, single city-life. I’ve been on a lot of first dates, have made a few real friends, thrown dinner parties, focused on classes just enough to be engaged but not enough to be swallowed whole, and partied, maybe, a little too hard. And then, one fortuitous night in January of 2006, I randomly crashed “some 1L’s” birthday party- now a good friend- and met the Man Who Would Be Husband. Not that I would have known it at the time. I’m not too proud to admit that I met the love of my life as a result of a drunken bar hook-up gone horribly right. I vividly remember declaring to my mother on the phone earlier that same night that the men here were wholly undatable for some weird fetish or another, and all the rest who might retain a trace of desireablity already had girlfriends. Little did I know! Even before that fateful night, however, my first, true love here was Boston itself.

During the darket, coldest days over the last three years my mantra has been, “The only way out is through.” Now, today, I am finally, almost, through. I lost perspective so many times and forgot that being a law student was a means, not an end. Recently, I re-read a journal entry from one of the more morose times in my life, dated almost exactly two years ago:

“ …. today, I feel discouraged, sad and confused, I am small and my heart is so delicate and bruised- but I am choosing to believe its still a wonderful day, that I can accomplish something, that someday (perhaps sooner than I realize) all of this will be just a distant memory, hardly worth a grimace. One day, I believe, I will be truly happy, and not because I talk myself into it, but because I really just am. I can’t see it now and my faith is weak, but I will remain open and hopeful for good things around every corner and arise each day to deal with disappointments one by one and keep moving forward. Hope is the choice that I have to make anew, every single day.”

It’s astonishing to look back on that, and, ohh, how I wish to reach inside the page, grab hold of that heart-sick girl and let her know how really, truly more-than-okay it was all going to be. Good things were right around the corner. And here I am, at the finish line (of law school, at least), and my regrets are few compared to how much has been learned, and I would do it all again, ache by ache, to be end up where I am today.

As good as things are right now, they’re only getting better. I’m looking forward to passing the bar. I’m looking forward to starting my ‘grown up’ job at the law firm. I’m looking forward to paying off my student loans, to traveling and watching my niece grow up. I’m looking forward to marrying my very best friend. I’m looking forward to making a real home in Boston, replete with friends, family and, hopefully very soon, a puppy. But more than anything, I’m looking forward to not looking back.