Things are Wrapping Up

I'm not writing with any purpose today, just checking in as an attempt to avoid studying for finals.

It is surreal to acknowledge that this may very well be my last set of finals in my life.  I'm not sure if I'll end up going to B school.  If it's not necessary, I have no ambition to.

This experience is sad, but ironically not as sad as graduating college.  Graduating from Carolina was one of the most heartbreaking times in my life. I cried myself to sleep regularly.  I worried that the best years of my life had been wasted by not pursuing "the right things" and not spending enough time with my friends. I spent too much of college in a relationship that was very negative for me. It looked like I was about to head downhill, but hadn't appreciated the feeling of climbing to the top.

I love how naive I was.  But it took another difficult year of post-grad life to come to terms with what I wanted out of life.  I started law school with a lot of hopes and worries. The last thing on my mind was that I was about to begin one of the best times of my life thus far.

I could delve into what about law school was good, but I'd like to distill it simply this afternoon. It was good because I was genuinely challenged on a deep level. I had to ask myself what kind of person I was, and what I wanted to make of my career.  And most importantly, what I really wanted to do "when I grow up."  Still growing . . . 

And, yeah, I learned a lot of real knowledge. I entered law school knowing, but unable to articulate, some marketing basics. I knew how to write thank you cards. But I didn't know about business. I didn't know a thing about contracts. Or the entertainment industry, aside from music.  Or what a patent was.  Or anything.  I will graduate having real skills that save or make people money.  And I've taken it upon myself to get skills outside of the law.

So, the irony of me feeling sad at the end of undergrad, but a bit energized here, is that, I felt like the end of undergrad was the end of my life as I knew it.  Well, it was. I will never have an experience like that in my life again. No beautiful Old Well or leisurely summer-school walks to and from South Campus. My heart is still breaking that I won't witness the azaleas bloom around the Old Well each spring. No joke, tears in my eyes as I type that. I don't know what I would call my college years. College was a beautiful time, but not what I expected.

And, whereas I saw predictable returns for my efforts in undergrad (work hard, get As), the same was not true of my experience in law school.  I studied harder in Contracts and Patent than I did Chem or Bio 101 and wound up with a 3.1 and 3.2, respectively.  I literally didn't study for another course in law school and made a 3.9. I'm still unemployed, despite the fact that I would say my skillset makes me a much more attractive applicant to any firm compared to when I graduated undergrad. That's the price of ambition.

Despite this, I'm happier with my life because I'm pursuing and learning my dreams. California is for people who want to change things, or who want to surround themselves by changers. It's not enough to write papers. We don't write papers. We go out and do, and we eat a lot of avocados while doing. Every day is different and somehow timeless.

I have five exams and the bar ahead of me, and I'm about to turn twenty-six. I feel younger than I did when I graduated college. I am not nostalgic, I am here in the present. Too many unknowns ahead to have time to look back.

Some days are hard, but most aren't. A lot of people give out bad advice, some give out good. But the advice I'm heeding today is this:

"Don't worry about going and making partner. Just go be the best attorney you can, anywhere."

The law called to me when I was younger. I'm here with it now, but with mixed feelings. On a balance sheet, I would have been better off not having come to law school.   But I see this time as my real coming of age story. Now, I'm going to take the bar and hopefully be given a credential that allows me to do things that many people can't. I don't take that lightly.

So, so much has changed, but, nothing has at all. My mission in high school was to have a broad, positive impact. To leave my space a little better than how I found it. You would think I'd have narrowed that down. I haven't at all.