The Dirt Field

I made a difficult decision yesterday. Since I started law school, I’ve been filled with trepidation and doubts, and it has made getting motivated to succeed rather difficult. Truthfully, it has made getting motivated to get out of bed rather difficult. I’ve also been dealing with a lot of personal issues that have made focusing on school tremendously challenging, and by yesterday morning, I’d lost complete control over everything. It wasn’t a particularly pretty sight, so I figured it was time to make some big changes. I called the Director of Student Affairs to discuss my options, and she granted me a meeting at 11:00am yesterday.

Within a moment of stepping into her office, I burst into ridiculous tears. I swore to myself that I’d at least get through the whole introduction part, but my facade of bravery crumbled instantly. I already have a terrible cold, so whole crying/sniffling/coughing made for an exceptionally memorable meltdown.

She could not have been nicer and more helpful. We discussed my options, and she suggested that I take a leave of absence until next fall, at which point I could begin law school again with my full attention devoted to my studies. She explained that after reviewing my transcript, she knew that I was fully capable of succeeding in law school, but that I needed to get my life back together first. By taking a leave of absence, I will still be a Mason Law student, I will have access to the university’s services, and I will be able to petition the school for a refund of my tuition.

So I agreed to take her advice. I still have to turn in the necessary paperwork, but my request has already been approved. At the end of the meeting, I gathered up the hundreds of dirty tissues that were surrounding me, tearfully smiled, and told her, “I’d shake your hand, but I don’t think there’s enough hand sanitizer in the world to make that an okay move.”

And then I left school, and that was that.

In the spirit of making big changes, I made some other major decisions yesterday, decisions that I don’t really want to discuss, but that are making life infinitely more difficult and hard to swallow right now. I realize it might have made more sense to space them out over a period to time, but in my conflicted mind, it seemed better to just take a flying leap off the cliff all at once.

I guess I’m not really okay right now – probably not at all – but that’s just part of growing up, right? Sometimes you have to made big, bad, hard choices because you just run out of other options. Sometimes it seems like the choices you’ve made are nearly impossible to swallow, but you have to keep moving forward because the alternative is only a path of avoidance.

I know life didn’t exactly hand me lemons…it would probably be more accurate to say that I enthusiastically plundered a grove of lemon trees all on my own. But screw making lemonade; I’m just going straight for the lemon drops.