It is official!  We did it!  We all made it through the rigors of law school and came out on the other side, still alive and well.  I have been crying ever since grades came out, and I’m still crying as I write this.  The dream I had from way, way back, so very long ago, has come true.  I graduated law school!!!!!!  I overcame so many difficulties, so many trying times, and some many times when I just didn’t want to carry on.  I ate popcorn, macaroni and cheese, and even cheese crackers for dinner on so many nights I can’t count.  I ate enough Sour Patch Kids to fill up a small lake, and I learned just how incredibly annoying white noise on an ipod can become after listening to it for 1,000,000 hours in a row.  I fought countless hours of drowsiness from getting no or very little sleep.  I moved two kids to college, put a house up for sale, bought 5 acres of land, built a 258,000 sq ft hospital addition, and read probably a thousand cases.  I researched and wrote papers.  I did things that truly scared me, like doing a mock trial in front of a Court of Appeals judge and doing a mock appeals case in front of 20 classmates and our professor.  I slept in my carrel once, although it was only for a short time.  I got to know those old Arkansas Code books really well, and I still consider them my friends. 

We received our grades today, and I honestly could not be more pleased.  I graduated with honors, all while holding down a more-than-fulltime job, with a husband, kids, and a mortgage, and went through one of the most trying times of my entire life.  I persevered, I came through, and I conquered.  I am my own hero this evening.

Also today, an old friend told us that she is officially going back to school, to pursue a dream she has had for many years.  She wrote me a note a few weeks ago.  She said that my posts had inspired her to go back to school.  There is nothing quite like that.  It was the best note I had received in a long, long time, and I’m so truly grateful that she took the time to write it. 

Tonight we celebrate.  I’m ditching bar prep, if only for a few hours, so that we can go out and eat, using one of the gift cards I got for graduation. 

The last time I left the library before I graduated, I visited my old friends, the AR Code books.  I wished them well, and told them I hoped that the other students would be as good to them as I had.  I loved them – they were the history of the times, and they showed what was truly important to those Arkansans back in the day.  I know I will miss them, and I hope they think about me once and again.