Raindrops bounce into my kitchen, stamping little, dark circles on my refrigerator collage of Post-Its and postcards and pictures. I should get up and close the window, I know. It’s storming outside, the kind of Iowa summer storm that arrives unannounced, cool rain calming the charged air.

I look up from the court case I’m reading. A streetlight in the distance illuminates the raindrops as they fly in. As if this is the only place they want to be.

I started law school last week, and this is the only place I want to be, I keep reminding myself. So far, it’s fun and exciting and demoralizing and empowering and overwhelming and scary, among other things.

Law school is the process of rewiring your brain, I’ve heard again and again, and it makes frightening sense now that I’m here. Continue reading →

Molly and me during our freshman year at Drake.

I tried to pack my excitement and sadness into boxes. Surely they would fit somewhere, nesting among sweaters from college I can’t seem to part with, books I always open to find a postcard or old to-do list wedged between the pages, its tasks reading like a secret English major code.

“Books, office supplies, consuming sadness, TV stand trinkets,” the Post-It on the box would say. “Photo frames, globe, guilt-laden excitement, box of cards I never open.”

It’s been a bizarre last few weeks; I had a different blog post written, one about Europe and adventure and contentedness and the electricity of meeting Twitter friends in real life. About bargaining at outdoor bazaars and souvenirs and making eyes at smoldery European men because I knew I’d never see them again.

Two days after I got back from a nine-day trip to London, Vienna and Bratislava, I found out a friend from my freshman year at Drake had passed away suddenly over the weekend. I started packing for law school in Iowa City a day later, crying on and off as I turned my sadness and anger into an apartment maze of boxes, bags and things that didn’t belong anywhere.

I approached my excitement and grief in much the same way, unsure where to put them, wondering whether I should put them in separate boxes or let them vie for space in the same one. Continue reading →