Sweetie and I like to travel.  We’ve been to tons of different places and countries during our nearly 8 years together, and we have many more trips planned in the future.  I didn’t travel hardly any in my previous relationship, so I’m taking advantage of our ability to travel now, while we’re still young enough to enjoy it.  Someone asked me today when we were going on our next trip, and I told them it would be just a little bit away from now.  I got a weird look, as if we had taken enough vacations already, and that this was just being some emotion I should feel but don’t.  I don’t know that this was really what the look meant, but it’s what it felt like anyway.

I didn’t take it the wrong way, though, as I do know that we are fortunate to have traveled so much.  We’re also 40-something, which makes a huge difference.  We travel on our own cash – we don’t go into debt to travel and won’t.  We put things on a credit card and pay them off each and every single solitary month IN FULL merely to gain points on the card to use for travel.  If we didn’t get the points, we wouldn’t even use a credit card at all.

Also, with law school, taking a short trip somewhere really makes me able to keep going.  It’s really tough, especially during the holidays, because no one really understands what it’s like to have to run from holiday parties to get back to writing a paper and studying for final exams.  It’s not a fun experience, and fall semester is the very worst.  I wish they’d start a week or two earlier in the summer so that I could actually enjoy the time off from work, but that’s not going to happen.

Working a full-time job and going to school at night is also hard.  All of the full-time students are totally off during ‘dead week’, but the rest of us with jobs, kids, and mortgages are still working our 40 hour a week jobs to make sure we don’t get evicted (and hence, need the services of one of our own).  It’s not easy, but it’s worth in the long run.

I do think, sometimes though, that I’d like to buy a t-shirt that says, “1. I don’t know what my plans are yet after graduation because the economy stinks and the legal market hasn’t recovered from the 2008 debacle; 2. Graduation is May 18, a mere ____ days away; 3. No, I can’t give you legal advice; and 4. No, I’m not finished with finals.”  The ___ in #2 could merely be a Velcro number I stick on for each day.  It sure would save some time.  I know folks care, and that’s nice, but if I could just get a t-shirt or maybe some cards to hand out at the beginning of dinner, maybe I could talk about something fun (a.k.a. anything but law school) for a few hours.

For those of you struggling through law school right along beside me, do take some time this season to celebrate whatever holiday is meaningful to you, even if it’s simply one Saturday night of fun with friends and loved ones.  This time will pass.  We will have holidays again.  Law school is not forever, and it’s certainly not life.

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