I’ve intended to write this post for awhile.

But law school got in the way.

Which, as you’ll soon see, is a bit ironic.

Early on into this semester, I started to feel a heaviness over me.

Heaviness that left me with a general sense of unhappiness.

And I don’t mean unhappy in the terms of ‘I’m just not having any fun.’

Because, I was having fun.

But law school was making me miserable.

Depressed almost.

Anxious and forced to rely on double doses of sleeping pills in order to sleep even a couple hours.

I started to think about why I was in law school at all.

Especially since I never actually wanted to be a typical lawyer.

So I had to sit and think about why I was willing to go $150,000+ into student loan debt over something that was making me miserable–something that wasn’t really something I wanted.

And I came to the conclusion that law school was just something I have always felt was expected of me.

Something I was supposed to do.

Problem is, all of that was me-focused. I thought. I thought my family. Etc.

I never sat and truly considered what maybe God’s plan was for all of this.

I was just so convinced that I was supposed to go to law school (whether I really wanted to or not), and so it obviously must be God’s will too.

Now I know that I was pretty wrong about that.

And that maybe I should have paid attention to certain things before jumping in head first.

Like, maybe there was a reason I could pull 170s on practice LSATs, but definitely not on the actual exam. Three times.

Yet, I still pushed on, and chose a law school.

I’ve had fun at law school.

It’s not that I absolutely hate it.

It’s not that I haven’t done well.

I’m not great, but good enough.

I could easily keep going.

Trudge through two more years.

But I started to ask myself for what reason?

Why continue on a path that makes me miserable.

A path that forces so many sacrifices.

I started to ponder what it is that I truly desire.

What is my purpose?

What are my priorities?

What do I want more than anything else in the world?

Believe me when I say I shocked myself when I immediately realized the answer to that last question.

Especially since I’ve always prided myself on my independence.

Could I have it without leaving law school?

Yeah, I could–but not the way I want.

Am I guaranteed this by leaving law school?

Not at all.

But I do know that staying in law school and acquiring that massive debt will force me to make sacrifices that I am just not willing to make.

And I know that the reasons I came to law school at all are not in God’s plan for me.

Part of my purpose in life is involved–but law school is certainly not necessary for me to fulfill that purpose.

In fact, I’ve since discovered that, when all is said and done, I can do more without a JD, then I could with one.

And so now I find myself relying on this passage in particular:

Isaiah 55:8-11

“For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, declares the Lord. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts. For as the ryan and the snow come down from heaven and do not return there but water the earth, making it bring forth and sprout, giving seed to the sower and bread to the eater, so shall my word be that goes out from my mouth; it shall not return to me empty, but it shall accomplish that which I purpose, and shall accomplish that which I purpose, and shall succeed in the thing for which I sent it.”

And so, when I walk out of my last final on May 8, I will be walking out of the school for good.

It has been a crazy year.

I’ve learned a lot about myself.

I’ve made wonderful friends who I will never forget.

And I am sure they will remain my friends for years to come.

And I’ve got at least 50 lawyers I can call for advice in the years to come.

But it is time for me to close this short, but intense chapter of my life and move on.

I do not know where to yet.

I am job searching mainly in DC, Atlanta, and Dallas.

I don’t know exactly what direction my life is going to go in, but I am confident that I am making the best decision.

I will go after my purpose in life.

Focus on my priorities.

All I can do is trust God and His will for my life.

Whatever it may be.

All I can hope is that it does not involve Bluebook.

 

“A simple life is not seeing how little we can get by with—that’s poverty—but how efficiently we can put first things first. . . . When you’re clear about your purpose and your priorities, you can painlessly discard whatever does not support these.” -Victoria Moran

 

 

I’m of the belief that if you aren’t changing, or at least willing to change, you won’t grow as a person.

Part of that changing is accepting difficult things in life.

There is one thing in my life at present that I’m finding a bit difficult to deal with.

Outgrowing friends.

Fact is, if you are going to grow as a person, you will at some point outgrow some of your friends at some point.

My particular situation is that I’ve grown up.

I’ve changed a lot since the time I was good friends with someone we’ll call Taylor.

(Because that’s a name that can be a boy or a girl)

The problem is, that person hasn’t.

We have next to nothing in common anymore, and it’s become a bit of chore to keep up the friendship.

I’ve asked advice from people, and they’ve all said to just let it go and move on.

But how do you do that?

It would actually be pretty easy for me to shut the door and walk away.

And then I think that makes me a horrible person.

Because it’s not just me involved here.

There’s other people too.

Some other mutual friends completely understand where I’m coming from.

And tell me it’s perfectly fine for me to move on.

For one thing, it’s not like we even live in the same state.

Which is actually very common for me given how many places I’ve lived.

Friends are interesting things.

There are friends I’ve had for 20 years that I still talk to and hang out with on occasion.

But then there are friends I have made more recently, and they are the ones I tend to outgrow the fastest.

There’s some sort of saying about how some people come into your life forever, and some are just for a season.

Each friend I’ve had has made some sort of impact on my life.

But does that mean I have to keep contact and pretend that everything is just as it always was when it definitely isn’t?

How do you move on from a friendship without coming across as a total bitch?

It’s not like you can just say, “Look, we’ve had a good friendship, but I need to let it go. It’s not growing me as a person.”

I’ve always been a person who worries about how my actions will affect someone else.

Or what people will think of me as a result of my words or actions.

But at the same time, people will always create their own reality, and if they choose to create the feeling of abandonment, it is up to them.

I cannot be responsible for how someone else takes something.

And what do you do if you just try to abandon the friendship by default?

Just stop having contact or something, but then they can’t accept it and continue to try to contact you?

It’s not that I’m suddenly better than my friend(s).

I guess it’s kind of like you’re at the train station, jumping on a train that is going to different destinations than your friends.

We make different choices in life, career, marriage, etc.

Those choices then can have the effect of causing certain friendships to fade.

It’s not anyone’s fault. It just happens sometimes.

It’s happened before to me. I had a great friend for many years–in high school and through college.

Then he married someone else, but our friendship was of the kind that wasn’t conducive to remaining friends once he was married.

It just didn’t feel like it would be good to stay friends.

So I went to the wedding and then walked away, only to contact him periodically to congratulate him on all the babies he seems to be having.

It’s totally fine. We never talked about it, but it seemed to be a mutual decision to end the friendship.

(And for the record, it wasn’t like a friends with benefits thing, we just were really close friends that talked about everything that it would no longer be okay to talk about with him having a wife)

But the case right now is that it isn’t mutual. The other person doesn’t want to let go of the friendship.

Or maybe they do, but are too afraid to let go of another thing from the old days.

There’s always going to be that sense of obligation, of staying true to your friends, but you also have to stay true to yourself.

Sometimes you just have to move on.

And who knows, maybe you’ll meet up with some of your old friends down the road.