My New Home

I have a new home over here. My new blog has every one of my posts and comments from this blog. I hope you'll come visit me : )

Being a Catholic Law School Wife

I realize that I don't talk very much about my religion on here. I'm not exactly sure why, since we attend a Catholic law school and everything. I think it is impart because I have fought long and hard for my religion, so I'm rather tired from all the fighting. Two reasons: one being that I converted from protestantism to Catholicism at a very unusual time: in college. I went to a liberal, public college and most students, partying, secular, experimental 20-somethings acted like choosing Catholicism was about as smart as jumping naked into Lake Huron in the winter. The second is that my family just about disowned me for converting. I was raised loosely Presbyterian, but we rarely went to church. I started attending an Evangelical church on my own late in high school and converted to Catholicism in my freshman year of college. I endured a TON of shit during the conversion process and dealt with a TON of fallout after I was formally confirmed. Although most of the dust has settled now, I am still walking a fine line between re-offending everyone to whom I am blood-related and being Catholic.

Anyway, despite my fear of pissing off the few survivors of the conversion, Matt and I are rather devout. We go to Mass weekly, say Rosaries, read encyclicals, have religious art around our apartment, use NFP, all that jazz. We used to go to Adoration, but there are no 24-hour Adoration chapels down here and the few churches that offer a monthly Adoration hour schedule it for the retired seniors in the community instead of the working class.

Anyway, we also go to a Catholic law school. The mentality and culture of the school is VERY family-friendly. Kids are invited to just about every school event. Wives are often seen in the school's chapel for morning Mass. Professors don't mind students taking a few days off when their wives give birth. There are prayer groups during finals week and bar exam time when families can get together to pray for their law student. Rather pleasant.

Religion plays a large role in our life. When I think about how far we've come, how many decisions we've made, how precariously we're perched right now, I tend to freak out. When I think about the future, wonder where we are going to go, wondering what would happen if I lost my job (real estate is suffering hard core with this most recent down-turn), wondering how we will survive if Matt doesn't find immediate work, it's pretty terrifying. I have to remind myself that we are NOT doing this alone.

Being down here has shown me how strong of a person I am and how utterly dependent we are on God. It sounds weird, but it's true. In a very strange way, you have to be strong to depend on God. By that I mean, it takes strength (discipline) to be humble and vulnerable and look to a being you can't touch or see; it takes strength to have faith. We have a lot of faith; without it, I would be a sobbing mess on the floor. We pray a lot that God might reveal His will for us so that we can follow it. We want to be sure we're laying our foundation out correctly so that we can build a holy family upon it.

Anyway, that's how my religion plays into my life, the law school part anyway.

Birthdays

Today is Matt's birthday. We bought some donuts after church, read through the newspaper together, opened presents, went to the bookstore with our 40% off coupons to spend some of our freespending money (our allowance to ourselves), then we picnic-ed on the beach, went for a swim in the Gulf, came home, read our books, ate a DELICIOUS dinner and cake (homemade of course : ), and now Matt is playing Rome Total War (a Christmas present from a few years back). I was knitting while I watched, but I wanted to check something online real quick and one thing led to another...

Matt doesn't typically get excited by holidays/events, so, being the countdown queen that I am, I've had a countdown going on the white board since we were 2 weeks out. The countdown, combined with lots of discussion about the menu and the activities for the day upped his excitement level significantly. He was quite ready to tear into those presents today : ) I try to put a little extra into holidays down here since we have no family with whom to celebrate.

Anyway, I have more insightful blog ideas, which I will post shortly. Here is a teaser (plus this way I won't forget!)

2L vs 1L yr and the benefits of the summer internship
How religion impacts our life with relation to law school

Is it really only 10:07pm??? I thought it was already a little after 11pm and was contemplating powering down and heading to bed. Oi, I am such a light-weight.

The Things We Do for Love

It is 10:00pm, and I am at the law library with my husband. I wanted to spend some time with him, and he needed to go to the library, so here I am. Usually I am in bed at this point. Although, it is a Friday night, maybe I would have stayed up until 10:30 or even 11pm. Either way, I am never out this late.

I guess this is one of those things you do when you love your husband and you're in law school.

The library is rather cold, by the way.

The Reinvention of Self

At the last book club meeting, the particular book we were reading led many women to tangent upon how the choices they made when they were growing up have changed their lives today. It was interesting how even though unexpected things did change the course of events for them, a good number of things they'd wanted "ever since they were young" came true.

I am also struck by a coworker of mine. She is in her 50s and has recent discovered the gym. She has taken bikram yoga, is currently taking a spinning class, and hopes, when her two high-school age children have left for college, to start taking tennis lessons. I am really amazed that at 50, she decided to do something new with her life.

Matt and I choose to go to a particular school that put us in a city we don't want to live in and in a state we don't want to reside. We are stuck doing this for the next two years. We have no extra cash with which to take long vacations, buy kayaks, or even buy a second car. (Which, by the way, had something else go wrong with it, and I have officially put about as much money into the car as it is worth since the spring, although that does include new tires). Anyway, I start to think that nothing in life will ever be back in our control.

I also feel, perhaps because so often our society decrees our 20s to be the best years of our lives, that I have to accomplish all of my dreams before I hit the big 3-0. (This proves difficult because I don't want to work when our kids are young and we hope to have most of our kids while we are young). Anyway, I often feel like we are going to be stuck in a one bedroom apartment with no money and no excitement for the rest of our lives, thus rendering my dreams, and my life, empty.

Lastly, a friend of mine (in her 30s) has done a significant amount of traveling, especially in Indochina, including spending a month in Thailand. I would say that her experiences traveling have shaped her outlook on life dramatically. I was shocked to find out that by the age of 21, the only place she'd ever visited outside of America was Cancun!

I think that as much as it is important to have friends going through what you are going through (in my case law school), it is also important to have friends who are in a different place in life. I think that later group of friends is really crucial to us seeing the "bigger picture" so-to-speak, as opposed to getting caught up on the drama of our own situation.

I could still learn how to become a camping and kayaking expert, perhaps while teaching my family. I could even pursue a job field testing LLBean gear! If I want, it is completely possible for me to have a 15 year career as a library. I wouldn't even have to start until I was 50 in order for that to happen. I could see all 50 states, visit Ireland, and Scotland, and London, and Egypt, and Greece, and Krakow, and Austria, and Bali, and Kamchatka. I could even volunteer to work with that big cat sanctuary up in Tennessee. Maybe if I played my cards right, I could even do all of those things; if I live to be 80, I could have six ten-year long careers. And heck, at 23, I could still even get a novel published before I hit the not-so-awful 3-0.