I suppose in an effort to start with my best foot forward I should explain how I got here. For years I’ve pondered a blog, but never ponied up and put my money where my mouth is. In fairness, I’ve been a tad bit busy the last several years. I came cruising into my last year of law school (and by cruising, I mean holding on for dear life hoping to make it to the finish line) suddenly questioning things I’d spent the majority of my life being certain about. It was a much-needed wake up call, but a rough one. It’s hard to come to grips with questioning a goal you’ve worked your whole life towards at the end of accomplishing it. I mean What. The. Fuck.
Did not have that in my schedule.
But the beauty of the last two years is it has shown me so much more than I would have seen laser focused on something like I was. It also made me realize that there is so much we don’t talk about that we should. Like the fact that no one knows what they are doing, that would have been a nice thing to know mid-quarter life crisis. Why are we so accustomed to comparing ourselves to people’s social media highlight reels even though we know they are only posting the good stuff? Or what to expect after finishing a grad program after spending so much of your life working towards just getting in it and surviving. Why are we not talking about mental health when the majority of us are suffering from some form of anxiety and depression?
See most of my life I’ve been a person people come to with problems. Apparently, I’m good at lending an ear, some perspective, and some solutions. I did not anticipate, however, that getting into law school would up the ante the way that it did. Suddenly people started treating me differently in a way that made me deeply uncomfortable and somewhere along the way I started to feel like a bit of my humanity had been lost in the process. Obviously, I am proud of my hard work and my accomplishment. I understand the origin of people viewing law school as a sign of intelligence and/or the connotation that someone must have everything ‘figured out’ to have made it that far. But at least for me personally, I never expected to have so many people view that as a rubber stamp of approval that I would have all the answers. Even worse, so often I would get people who would talk down their own intelligence to me because they weren’t doing what I was doing. I HATE that. For the record, I wholeheartedly believe that everyone has their own strengths and that does not make you any less intelligent than someone whose strengths are in a different department. After all wasn’t it Albert Einstein who said, “But if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it will live its whole life believing that it is stupid.” I digress.
It already is easy in such a program to get caught up into titles, prestige, and perfectionism. When people then are putting you on a pedestal, it is inevitable to struggle to find some grounding. Not to mention, the more you accomplish the more people expect and ask of you without considering your mental, emotional, or physical well-being. I had clients asking me for input about real life decisions, not just legal ones, and I was half their age. Seriously, ask anyone whose worked in legal aid, the majority of the issues people need help with have very little to do with the law. What little personal interactions I did have with my small window of free time were often conflicted. I either felt guilty for taking time to do something for myself when I never got to see or talk to anyone, or I got overwhelmed because I was starting to feel like the majority of my interactions were people wanting something from me with little consideration of how I felt on the other end. Or what I wanted. Or if I even needed help. On top of that, the expectations and work load of a program like that automatically create a necessity to be ‘selfish’. Years of my life solely dedicated to getting through law school and missing weddings, family events, holidays, etc. Add in some self-doubt and you’ve arrived at recipe for a global meltdown come graduation. Don’t get me wrong, I enjoyed the work I was able to do in school and to be frank I was good at it. But I also had so much pressure on me in so many directions, my own added pressure included, that the slightest seed of uncertainty about something made me feel like a failure. However, as intimidating as it all was how could I expect anyone to understand if I didn’t explain it? I was advocating for everyone but myself, and that was a problem.
The conclusion I came to was so much of what I’ve encountered the last couple of years could be solved by simple conversations. In my personal and professional life. Yes, it was daunting for people to have so much faith in my input, even despite the age gap. It also became clear to me a lot of the problem was that people did not have access to the information I did, because it’s never really been publicly accessible in an efficient way. And what is made public is written in such a way that no normal person can understand because it’s purposely complicated. Perhaps going against my own professional self-interest, but I’m calling b.s. There is a difference between genuine legal assistance we can provide, and pointless gatekeeping of actual useful information like tenant rights. You shouldn’t need an attorney to tell you what your landlord can and can’t do so that you aren’t taken advantage of.
Similarly, on a personal level, I was unprepared for so much that is completely normal to be unprepared for. But I didn’t know that because literally no one talks about it. So here is my attempt to discuss the things that hopefully can help someone avoid making the learning process more painful that it needs to be. An attempt to allow us all to open our minds and perspectives so we can grow. A chance to learn something new, or simplify something old. And, perhaps, an opportunity to also have some fun along the way.
Hope You Enjoy,
Kels
Volume III 
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