May 31: "Law school?''

It’s been a month since the end of my first semester back in school. During that time, I’ve been working at a convenience store and worrying – needlessly, it turns out – about whether I would get the financial aid required to attend summer school. I’ve also been waiting for Mississippi State to release the President’s List.

I will confess that I’ve been sort of glorying in finishing the spring semester with a 4.0 GPA. I don’t really need the President’s List notification to confirm this – it’s a part of my student record now – but being on the list somehow makes it seem more official.

But Wednesday, I begin summer school classes, so this is probably a pretty good time to put last semester behind me. If you know me, you realize I have a strong tendency to sort of live in the past, mostly to my detriment. Most of that past, at least for the past five years, has been a painful memory. Even the things that began sweetly and still stir my heart, ended badly. And I can’t seem to give that up entirely.

So shifting my focus to what lies ahead is not as easy as you might assume. I just can’t seem to let well enough alone, as the saying goes.

But there is good reason to look forward.

About a month ago, I met a beautiful, talented, smart woman. I won’t go into any other details because it’s always been my policy on this blog to protect the privacy of those people I meet for whom a fair amount of privacy is in order.

But I will say that this woman is an attorney and through out conversations, an idea has emerged – an idea that is almost as frightening as it is exciting.

This woman – I’ll call her Lisa – is an attorney. In fact, she went to Law School in her late 30s after working as a bank examiner for many years.

Law School. I confess that I’ve been toying with the idea ever since my Media Law professor at MSU suggested that I had “missed my calling.’’

And in some respects, my interest in Law goes back to my childhood. I remember as a child, the Daily Journal ran a syndicated “Ask the Lawyer’’ type column. I would cut these articles out of the paper, consider the question and the answer supplied and think about why the lawyer gave the advice he gave. I liked the idea of being a lawyer.

But somewhere along the way, I got the writing bug and I can’t say my interest in Law was something that stayed with me, at least not consciously.

But now, as I consider my future, I wonder if going to Law School might be a worthy pursuit. I have to confess that writing briefs and making arguments before the court has an enormous appeal. Of course, like any job, the good stuff is often a small part of the job. The practice of law is mostly drudgery. Then again, what isn’t? We endure the drudgery to get to the “good stuff,’’ in almost every occupation.
But there are some serious obstacles I would have to clear if I were to go off in this direction. Some are practical, others psychological.

Practically speaking, I would have to assume even more debt to go to Law School. I figure, I’d be anywhere from $50,000 to $70,000 in the hole at the end of the process.

You could look at that as an investment in my future, I suppose. But at the same time, could I make enough as a practicing lawyer to pay back those loans? There’s a saying that goes, “Some artists deserve to starve!’’ and the same applies to attorneys. Lord knows, there is no shortage of them and Lord knows there are an awful lot of them that are making next to nothing.

So if were to make the commitment to becoming a lawyer, I’d have to be a successful one, and that means long, long hours for lots of years. I have always dreamed that someday, I’d spend my “Golden Years’’ enjoying myself to some degree, doing a bit of traveling, working in the yard, playing golf, visiting my as yet-to-be-born grandkids.
But it looks as though I’ll be working hard until I drop. Of course, this is likely no matter what occupation I chose.

Becoming an attorney would also mean finding a firm that would hire a middle-aged recent Law School grad with a felony record or, failing that, the ability to develop my own clients, which is also a risky venture.

Of course, I could be getting ahead of myself. First, I’d have to take the LSAT (the exam that all prospective Law School candidates must take before admission) and knock it out of the park. I’d have to score very, very high.

The main reason for that is my academic record. My years of being an indifferent student are coming back to haunt me in this regard. By my calculations, the best GPA I could finish with would be a 3.47, which is pretty good – unless you are applying for law school. In that case, it’s near the bottom. To compensate for that “low’’ GPA, I’d have to ace the LSAT.

And, of course, there is the matter of even getting to that 3.47. To achieve that GPA, I would pretty much have to maintain a 4.0 GPA the rest of the way – that means I would have to make an A in both summer school terms and the fall and spring semesters.

That’s a tall order and it dawns on me that my 4.0 in the spring is merely the first step. I would need to do it again. And again. And again. And again.

It’s a challenge, to put in mildly.

Then there is another matter, one more psychological than anything else – three more years of school. Do I really want to commit to something like that?

Ever since I went to prison, I’d lived in equal parts past and present – reliving the awful nightmares of the past while clinging to the dream of a future when I was working, in a loving relationship, living in a place where I knew I would be more than a year or so, a life where I didn’t ever had to be lonely anymore and I would have the simple things that most people take for granted at my age but have eluded me for so many years.

Live in the moment? I’ve hardly ever allowed myself to do that. Or perhaps, I’m just not capable, anymore. I spend my life regretting the past and hoping for the future. I fear I am damaged beyond redemption.

But there is mostly pain in my past and the present if filled with uncertainty. To survive, I have had to dream that the future is somehow better than either my past or my present even though there is nothing really that guarantees that.

But I can’t stay where I’m at, so going to school – either as an undergrad as I am now or as a graduate student or Law School student – are steps toward that future I so desperately cling to give me something rather like hope. If my life is to be a disappointment, it won’t be because I didn’t try to make something out of it.

So to me, going to Law School is another three years of living in limbo. It’s a helluva risk.

I’m just not sure.

All I really know is that summer school starts on Wednesday and I have to be ready to continue this journey, even if it doesn’t amount to much more than tilting at windmills.

So here I go!