Effort

It’s taking effort to get started writing again. Knowing that the end of my law school career is near has brought up a lot of conflicting feelings. Many of my classmates, anticipating release from class schedules and no more unrealistic work assignments, have started acting as if the bell has already rung. The massive, unrelenting effort of law school has had me running on fumes for so long that I can’t even muster up enough effort to meditate – because, you know, meditation is active relaxation, meaning I have to do something affirmative in order to meditate, while watching TV is passive relaxation, meaning I don’t have to do jack shit. And jack shit is what I’ve been doing. Oh, and watching a lot of TV. My HGTV addiction has gotten so bad that my husband has threatened to stage an intervention.

This anticipation comes with anxiety – over what I’ll be doing for work and how to manage all the debt – and a splash of excitement – of having the whole world as my oyster. I mean, this is a clean slate. I could, in theory, do anything I want. But not really. How would the world respond if I were to decide, after all this effort, that I didn’t want to be a lawyer? That all I wanted was to stay home, push out a couple of puppies, and redesign my house? Or that, all law school has done has been to reinforce that I’m a writer, an artist? I’m in so much debt, how could I afford to be anything other than a lawyer, and a corporate one at that? Faith is believing in what can’t be seen. In a moment like this, is it faith to hold out for what I want absent any sign of its plausibility, or would that just be burying my head in the sand, living in a fantasy?

I only have so much effort to give and, having been pushed past that point, a whole lotta contradictions have been kicked up. If you were to look at me from the outside, you’d see me slumped in front of the TV, preferably watching Design on a Dime or Divine Design, but if you could see inside… Aaaaaaaaaah! This is why I haven’t been writing, because I don’t have it in me to do yet one more affirmative thing. And even if I did, I couldn’t begin to unravel the mess inside enough to make sense in a post.

And the wry twist* on it all is that times like these are the exact moments when I need most to write. When writing would be most beneficial. It’s hard to convince myself, though, that writing is going to feel better than, say, buying stuff online with money I don’t have. Or surfing the web. Or scrubbing the bathtub inch-by-inch with a toothbrush.

Where’re the remotes?

*The misuse abuse of “irony” stops here.