My J.D. was granted about 10 years ago. Well, 9 years, 8 months, 3 weeks ago. Or so.
On Friday, I threw out my law textbooks.
At first, I'd kept them because I'd thought that I would literally use them - that I would get a legal job and that they would serve as a reference. A safety net.
After some period of time, I'd come to realize that a career in the law was not in my future. Still, I lugged those books around. They were still a safety net, but of a different sort. I am licensed to practice in this state, albeit of 'inactive' status. As such, I could, theoretically, be called to serve in some way. Legally-speaking. To represent someone, for instance.
I would need a lot of help. Scads of help. Untold heaps of help. (How did I manage to pass the bar exam, anyway? What was I thinking?! I don't really know anything about being an attorney! At some point, someone's gonna figure out that I faked it all the way through school. I did not cheat, but I also never really "got it." And nothing's changed since then, certainly!)
So. Here I am, 10 years later. I've moved those heavy, heavy books over and over. Most recently, they were living in the basement of a dear friend's condo, taking up space and serving no positive purpose. We undertook a project wherein I donated a huge chunk (more than half) of my personal collection of books to the place where we work, either to add or for the teen group's upcoming sale (next weekend! Bring a bag - all are invited!). When I opened those boxes of law books, I recognized the opportunity that faced me; I had a choice. I could simply close the boxes and move them back into the basement or into my closet, and eventually to my parents' house for storage. I could keep them for a while longer, and no one would think anything of that. Those books cost a mint, and they look nice on the shelf, and they represent a very significant period in my past that goes relatively unrepresented in my "real life." Or I could take this opportunity to discard them.
They are old. Literally useless, because the information contained within is outdated. And, most significantly, I don't need the physical items to retain the emotional memories that are all that I want to keep from that time, anyway. So I flipped through each book and pulled out the colored index cards that I used as bookmarks, page numbers and due-dates written very legibly (at first) on each line...and lists of words scrawled on the margins or on the back, so that I could look them up later and have some clue what the fuck this or that Latin phrase had to do with what we were supposed to be pretending we were learning. I found notes to and from friends. LOTS of Post-It notes. I took ridiculously detailed notes in the books themselves, too; the cases and articles were meticulously underlined and cribbed with little "Π" [Pi] and "Δ" [Delta] marks, arrows leading from one to the other indicating conveyances and decrees and suits and blah blah blah.
I also wrote in the books when I disagreed with the rules. Pointless and frustrating and probably counterproductive, but it's an inescapable element of my personality.
I threw away all of the books. (Recycled what could be recycled and discarded the rest.) I brought home a few of the bookmarks so that I could share some of those words that either fascinated or confused me; I will do that post later in the week. And when all was said and done, I sat back down at my desk and felt...a little sick. Literally, I was queasy. "What have I done?" 10 years later, I still wonder sometimes if I'm gonna get caught in this lie, if someone's going to make me prove that I'm worthy of that degree and that license and I'm not going to be able to do it. The books wouldn't save me, though - if it's really a lie, nothing would. And now I'll just have a slightly easier time packing and moving.
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