Real Life, before and after

My philosophy is shot. I don’t have one anymore. I am confused. I’m happy to be done with school for a bit. But this is actually a new place for me. I’ve never been here and I have no idea where I’m going. I’ve had an interesting few days since school ended. Did I ever mention that I lost my husband? Well, for all intents and purposes, that is exactly what happened. But before I lost him, we lost his brother for real in a tragic car accident. Death comes in many forms.  Said brother-in-law was very unhappy when I left my husband, and yes, I do believe in ghosts. I have set my Christmas tree up twice now.  Twice it has been knocked over by an unknown force. I haven’t decided yet if that is my brother-in-law returning to express his displeasure with my new relationship or my manfriends deceased ex-wife letting me know she is unhappy. But somebody is unhappy, and they really don’t want me to have a Christmas tree this year. As of now, the tree has been moved into the garage and I have managed to salvage approximately half of my ornaments (none of which have any value to me, because all the ornaments from my past life have been packed away safe and sound). I’m a little creeped out. Christmas doesn’t mean that much to me anymore anyway. I don’t need the tree. But I need to have something for the children. There is nothing quite like seeing a tree fall over twice when nothing is near it, there is no wind, no breeze, no anything to explain it. It just went down. Twice. And I have no real desire to set it back up. Sometime between now and Wednesday I need to force myself to put it up. If it comes down again, I am going with a two-foot tall artificial version. My honey is creeped out. He knows the intensity of what was the disaster of my life. But he doesn’t quite understand that it follows me.

Speaking of following me, life has a way of coming through for me. Thanks to a mix up at the hospital where sonny boy has his organ transplant, I had the opportunity to talk to his social worker. He is fine. Doing well. Now, I suppose they could just say that to make me happy. But in my heart I believe it. I think he’s doing ok. I think he understands where things were at, and I think he still loves me. Someday, when he is old enough, he will come back to me and we will be fine. My ex-husband on the other hand is never coming back. He will never be ok. And that is just the sad truth of the matter. Unfortunately, I will never be ok either. The trauma of the thing has changed me forever and there is no way to go back and undo it. I am not the same person I was.  Life will never be the same. And anyone who has lived through a trauma that divides their life into before and after will know exactly what I am talking about.  The things I used to think would be the worst things that could happen to me are nothing. There are worse things. Things that are unimaginable. And such is life. So… I’m in law school.  That’s a pretty big deal. I love my honey and he loves me. That is a gift beyond my wildest dreams. More than I ever deserved to have and I am blessed. But the same, or even remotely close? No. And Christmas time is just a reminder of that. I can’t wait for it to be over. The falling tree may, after all, be simply a reflection of my own state of mind. This year marks my fifth Christmas on my own and my third Christmas without my son.  Only God knows why that is. Law school he tells me. So I go.

Why so confident?

I listened to the first two cassettes in my LEEWS system today.  It all seems like common sense to me. But I keep hearing that everyone at law school comes in with experiences of easy A’s in school, being at the top of the class, etc. So what makes me so confident that none of this will change? Come December, we will see if my confidence pays off. But for right now, I am honestly not worried about it. This is personal. The LEEWS program recommends being angry at exam time. That shouldn’t be hard. I am angry. Come hell or high water, I am going to do well in law school. And when I am done, it is very important that I be at the top of my class. Because….that is what creates the opportunity to do whatever I want with this degree. Anything less and I will be forced to take what is offered. I don’t want to take what is offered. I want to have my pick.

I have not come this far in the world because I sit around and wait for luck to strike me. Nor do I expect to be given anything that I haven’t earned. I work hard, and it pays off. I don’t expect that to change. I am prepared to do everything necessary (assuming a very high standard of ethical behavior) to succeed at this mission. It is personal and my performance needs to reflect that. So what about the rest of the people? I don’t really care about the rest of the people. If they come out ahead of me in a legitimate way, they will deserve that position.  I am going to worry about myself. And I have learned that when I apply myself I can succeed at whatever I set my mind to. I don’t expect law school to be an exception, and I don’t plan on changing my opinion on that. There are many things that I would like to do, and in order to do those things I need to master the art of law school, exams included. So that is what I am going to do. I suppose there could be other people who are feeling the same way right now. But I suspect those people are in the large minority. There is a very personal internal motivation involved for me. Am I angry? Yes. About many things. And anger can be put to very purposeful use.