My Marathon, part 5

All of a sudden it was over. No more early morning runs, no afternoon sprints, no long weekend runs. For the next week, I found myself still solving lsat questions as I turned over in the middle of the night. As I stacked all my books on our closet shelf, gathered up my number two pencils from around the house, life went back to normal. Looking back, the previous 10 weeks seemed like a blip.

I got my score last week. Remember how I said I had been shooting for average? Okay maybe just higher than average? Ironically, that’s exactly what I got. Just a couple points higher than the median score of lsat takers. Am I happy? I’m happy it’s not any lower. But I’m disappointed because it’s lower than nearly every previously administered lsat that I took. I’m frustrated because I’m not sure how I could have prepared better. I don’t know what I could do next time, differently, to get the several points higher that I put in all those miles for. (Besides, not have a mini-freak out during the games!) What do you do when you work your behind off for something and then it doesn’t go as well as planned? Try again sounds like the obvious answer. We’ll see. The lsat is offered next in October. 

I get emails from law schools every day. Some of them have even offered me scholarships, asking me to start this fall after snooping at my score. But those schools must not be very awesome, if they are trying so hard to fill seats in their incoming classes next month. I have heard law school applications are way down, nationwide.

Am I going to go to law school? The short answer is I don’t know. I don’t know if I want to be a lawyer. I mean I would love to have a fancy job to wear a pencil skirt and great shoes to every day that would be intellectually stimulating and offer our family stability and financial security...but I don’t know enough about what it is lawyers do every day to know if it would be worth it to me. It’s an enormous financial investment and I want to be really sure. I don’t know where I would apply. Hopefully my husband will have a job soon and that might provide a clue as to where to apply. But what if his next job is temporary and then what if we’re somewhere else next fall? Law school is three years long and in our 9 years of marriage, we’ve never lived in a city more than a year and a half...

It scares me to think about starting down a path when I don’t have a clue what type of law would make me feel fulfilled. Anyone need a nice, non-confrontational lawyer? I can do passive aggressive! I’d like to use my powers for awesome and make people’s lives better...but I’m not sure what that would mean for me.

I have a long time to think about those things. There are several lawyers in my congregation here and I hope to be able to follow each of them around at work for a little bit and get a better sense of things.

What did I get out of my self imposed marathon? The weeks of studying for the lsat were a sanity saver. That’s really why I kept going. My husband doesn’t have a job. Every day he practices for his next audition. Studying for the lsat gave me something to work toward as well. It added a lot of balance to my thoughts! Even though it was hard, frustrating, and time consuming, it was the right thing for me to be doing. 

 

I learned that I can accomplish MORE when I want to.  I could get up early every day to work on that scrapbook gathering dust in the corner.  I could make more time for geneaology work.  I realized that normal people probably just pick up a book and read when they need to feed their brain.

I want to be an example to my kids of continually striving to improve myself. I want them to learn how to play a musical instrument because I found SO MANY parallels to music throughout my struggling to figure the lsat out. The experiences I had, playing the horn for the last 18 years, brought me all the tools I needed to tackle my marathon (except maybe those pesky logic games). Time management, following directions, simulating “day of” conditions, abstract thinking, perseverance, self reflection/coaching, effective use of practice time, grit, courage, visualization, and attention to detail, are the first few parallels that come to mind. I want my kids to know that they can do hard things. But that’s really something they’ll only learn by doing it on their own. And if I end up going to law school, they’ll have to do more things on their own....like laundry and making their own breakfast and lunches....and it would be good for me to let them do those things for themselves.

I know that there is a plan for me and for my family and I feel hopeful for our future....sometimes I just wish it was all downhill for the next little bit so I could see our next finish line.

Thanks for reading, friends!