Law School Gauntlet

I recently settled my mind on the difficult thing about being married to a law student: the stakes are high. It's a huge investment of time, money and un quantifiable resources and the outcome is an unknown--as in all investments. You could end up in the top of your class or the bottom. Thankfully, for Jamie thus far, he has ended up in the top twenty percent of his first year class. This is an achievement for someone who has/had a pregnant wife and two/three daughters at the time.

In law school everything is graded on a curve. So your ability to succeed is literally tied to that of the best in your class. If you're lucky you're the best in a class on dopes. I told Jamie he should get his class ranking--30--printed on a t-shirt and wear it to a class and his response was, "No. There'd be 29 other people who could laugh at me."

I was thinking of all this last night as the girls and I embarked on our nightly stroll. I had a coffee and the girls were enjoying their Trader Joe's cookies that I parcel out at that time. I was thinking about what a treat it was to be out and about but how dismal my spirits were in contrast. It's always hard when you're somewhere new, relatively alone yet surrounded by people. I was missing the friends I take for granted in Phoenix. I was missing my little routines (surely thought of as ruts when I'm at home). I was just generally feeling sorry for myself. Such is the human condition, no? I'm strolling down a beautiful green park, outside no less (Phoenicians understand this July luxury), and taking in all the green and the late day sun filtering through the trees and I was all woe-is-me.

If I had seen a picture of that park in a book at home in Phoenix I would think, "If only I were there, life would be ideal, perfect, enjoyable. I would be able to seize the joy of life with my brood of children and we would be laughing together and stroking each others' hair in glee. We would partake of the best of ice cream and coffee..." Instead I was wishing my husband was with us and thinking, "Well when law school is over I'm going to buy myself a really expensive _______." Expensive what? I don't know. I couldn't even think of something that I want that badly that I couldn't get today. I just have this idea that when law school is over the Golden Days will commense.

Do I not realize that I am living them right now?

Yes, I do realize it, but I need constant reminding. Constant.

Isn't that the way?

I have a friend whose husband is in the midst of studying for the Bar exam. And she realizes, too, the faulty thinking that whatever is wrong with life will cease to be wrong "once the Bar exam is over."

Makes me glad I'm not the only feeble-minded little human muddling through life here on this beautiful but sometimes frustrating planet.

File this one under Things I Think About Way Too Much While My Small Children Grow Up Before My Very Eyes.