Last Days

So, I am sitting here in Room 320 of the Law School, waiting for my Very Last Class Ever (in a degree-seeking program) to begin. It is kind of strange, because I don't really know what to feel, or what I should be feeling. I am excited to have made it through three years of law school, but the fact that I will be forever done with law school classes here in about two hours is not really relieving because I know that I will just be right back here tomorrow studying for finals.

I know that I am going to miss being a part of the law school community-- I have had more friends here and felt more a part of things, and felt more normal than I ever have here at law school. (That probably says something about the collective proclivities of law students than anything else, but I have enjoyed feeling like I fit in regardless.)
I often feel this way during transitions from one stage of life to another. I struggle to know what to think about the closing of one era and the opening of another. I didn't really have a problem when I graduated High School, because I was really, really, really ready to get out of there. I didn't feel this way when I graduated with my undergraduate degree, either. That probably has something to do with the fact that I knew where I was going and what I was going to do next.

But I did feel this way when I left on my mission. And when I came home. And when I got married. Intellectually, I know that it is time to move forward-- really that there is nothing I can do to prevent things from moving forward. Emotionally, I am warming up to the idea. I don't really know what it is like to be anything other than a student-- just like I didn't know what it would be like to be a missionary or a returned missionary or a husband.

When I was a missionary, and the time finally came for me to transfer out of areas (I only had five), it was always strange to still be in the area for the last day before I moved. I would look up and down streets whose names I didn't know, but whose cobblestones and bento shops and newsstands were familiar to me. After a transfer call, those roads seemed like they didn't go anywhere anymore. They were closed off to me because I no longer belonged there. My sadness over leaving and in some ways losing places which were meaningful to me usually lasted until I got to my new area, where the streets stretched off into promising new directions.

I haven't reached that place yet. I am still kind of sitting here just trying to absorb the things that I am losing, the things that are coming to a close. It is extra weird because I will be back here in the library studying for the Bar Exam over the summer. I was here in the Law Library over the summer of my first year working for a professor, and this place is very strange without the students to bring it to life.

I think that what I am really trying to come to grips with is this; all my life, when things have changed, someone has been laying out the roads in front of me. Changing areas meant that I was heading somewhere new. Coming home from Japan meant that I would go back to school. Getting married meant that I would start a new life and a family with Jenny-- though learning to take the reins of all those decisions is a process I think we are just starting to understand. Graduating from UVSC meant that I would come to law school. Now, it is time to leave the law school and leave being a student (after 19 years of education). But the next roads... I don't really know what they are yet. It is slowly dawning on me that I will have to supply direction and initiative in ways that have not been required of me before. I get the feeling that this will be liberating and fulfilling in ways that I don't yet understand. Right now, it is a little bit unsettling and slightly intimidating.

Check back with me. I think I'm about to start seeing what my life is really going to be like.