Ashes to ashes

Is anyone else excited for fall? I was driving up to Iowa City over the weekend and saw the first couple signs advertising pumpkin patches. Soon, leaves will be changing colors, the air will get nippy, and we'll all be bundling up for winter.

As the world begins to change around me, I've spent more time thinking about the ways I've changed recently as well. Last week, I found my first gray hair, and this past weekend, I celebrated my 23rd birthday. I'm not really sure how to feel about these recent events yet.

To celebrate the anniversary of my Womb Liberation Day, I took a couple days off to relax and do nothing, which meant a lot more free time on my hands to waste roaming the internet. Thanks to Facebook, I recently learned that a high school classmate of mine bought her first house.

Several others are engaged. One just got married. A surprising amount of them are now either starting or in the middle of law school.

Sometimes it's easy to forget that I don't want what other people have or are striving for, even though it may look nice when presented on social media.

I would be miserable in law school!

But why is it that when I see old classmates posting their acceptance letters to T14 programs do I suddenly develop an itch to look into law school applications?

I try to limit my time on apps like Facebook or Instagram because it generally leaves me feeling bad about myself. I begin to believe I'm light-years behind my peers even if, by most standards, I'm doing pretty well for myself.

That feeling gets worse around my birthday when I'm actively thinking about my goals in life and the things I want to accomplish. Sometimes it feels like an endless hole, like I'll never be satisfied with what I've done.

Once you hit one milestone, it's immediately onto working toward the next. It feels like a perpetual race toward the top.

That's not to say social media is all bad or even that this feeling of inadequacy I'm dealing with is a completely negative thing. I do feel motivated to work harder and create a concrete game plan to move forward in life. I'm not sure what that exactly looks like for me but at least I'm thinking about it and trying to work my way through.

Anyway, if anyone ever hears me say I want to apply to law school, feel free to take me by the shoulders and shake me until I remember that I would absolutely hate it.