Well, there's nothing quite like bar exam prep to take your mind off you life.
First off, I need to fitch about obnoxious, unprofessional bar-bri classmates. The Roomie and I have been experience various species of this wonder in our two different classes. I'd like to adequately deal with each one so I may shelve them and their bad behavior. Oh, and it should be noted the seats in my classroom are pair uncomfortably close together, and they swing toward one another, making awkward knee-knocks inevitable and magifying obnoxious behavior.
CHERRY GIRL: No, she doesn't wear teenage age-appropriate yet wildly content-inappropriate clothing adorned with cherries, but that would be obnoxious. I hate those clothes. No, this girl believes the cherry pit longs for cleanliness, and every morning it is her calling to serve 15-20 cherries by sucking and slurping every last morself of cherry flesh from each desperate pit. Cherries... six inches away.
MR. ROGERS: This guy comes in, and despite the fact that you are the one and only person sitting in the row of 18 seats, he just really, really wants to be your neighbor. He snuggles up next to you, and he breaks out a notebook AND a laptop... and an entire package of chips ahoy.
THE TARDY TEXTER : This frat boy of old arrives 10 minutes late, spends the entire class on his handheld device, returns 5 minutes late from each break, and then spends the entire time he's actually in class leaning over to scope out your fill-in-the-blank answers that he missed because he's too busy to be bothered to listen to the video lecture. Not amused.
THE LIPPY SNIFFLER: Oh, this girl really got under my skin. Imagine listening to a rather important lecture, for which you've paid hundreds of dollars on top of the $3 in the parking meter and the $1.80 coffee to help you focus, and your neighbor's highlighter runs dry. Instead of cutting her losses and (gasp!) underlining, circling, or finding another suitable alternative, she insists she's going to squeeze every last drop of day-glo pink out of that sad little stick. While the conservationist in me values using our resources thoroughly prior to discard, her efforts to highlight with a dead as a doornail highlighter results in nothing short of screeching. WREEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEAAAACHHH. After shooting her a few stern, annoyed glances, she thankfully put down the weapon of torture.
On the breaks, Lippy attempts to explain away the screeching, unapologetically informing Roomie and me that her highlighter was almost out. No, Honey. It was out, and it didn't appreciate your forceful extraction anymore than we did.
We smiled, and turned to one another to talk about other things... things that would allow our taxed minds to relax for a precious 10 minutes (8 or so at this point, but who's counting?). I mention that I received a notice from Banana Repubic that a dress I've been flirting with for a month has finally gone on sale. Lippy, the eavesdropping pen wizard, interjects her theories on shopping and the bar. She excitedly interrupts our conversation with a "Oh, 'Vicky's' big sale started today!!" (*groan*.. "vicky's"??) She follows her interjection with a full analysis of how we're obviously too busy to shop, and she wears "fat pants" to class anyway, so there's really no point...blah blah blah. Roomie and I politely wait for her interjection to end, but it doesn't seem to know how. She actually finds a way to blabber for awhile about the point she never intends to fully make. Finally, she seems to have tired, and she doesn't seem to notice we haven't responded. The 10 minute break has ended, and she and her fat pants turn back toward the screen, armed with the dead highlighter.
Thinking it can't get worse, and too numb from the bar prep endeavor to really care, I gaze back toward the screen, ready to cram. Five minutes into the segment... "SNNNNNNNIIFFFFFFFF!!" (I know that's not really onomotapoeia, but go with me). Lippy has a stuffy nose. Her sniffles are not worthy of the cuteness of the word "sniffle"... no... she is wretching air through her crowded nostrils with the might she once reserved for highlighter torture. Now, I consider myself to be a fairly tolerant person, and had her breathing...challenges... been infrequent, I could easily have let them slide. No.. Lippy, hell-bent on depriving me of my very expensive learning experience, vehemently sucks air in 10-15 second intervals, making it impossible to regain focus. After a few excruciating minutes and some poignant head swivels punctuated by a glare right at Lippy's sniffly face, I am unwilling to deal. I lean in, and in a sweet, familiar tone I would use with someone who openly shared tales of bra-shopping and fat pants moments before, I whisper,"Hon, that's pretty loud. I'm having a hard time hearing over your sniffles." Lippy stares angrily back, and defiantly inhales. Unmoved, I lean back in and sweetly say,"Seriously, you really should go blow your nose."
It was an epic battle, but Lippy conceded defeat. She stood up wildly and stormed out (bumping Roomie on the back of the head on her way to clear her airways... jerk.). I sit back, smile, and take in the rest of the lesson.
***
Ok, so that was way longer than I expected.. but boy did it feel good to let that out!
Tuesday, June 30, 2009
Friday, April 24, 2009
Gypsy Soul and Open Eyes
It's times like these that I'm glad I suck at keeping this up, because I'm not sure anyone will ever read this.
Tag and I are splitting up. We filed for divorce a few weeks ago, and life is in a full upheaval.
The weirdest part about all this is that I feel so much more comfortable with the splitting up than I have with our marriage. There's so much more peace. As terrified as I always have been of getting a divorce, and for as often I've proclaimed that I never would, here I am. I'm 26. I'll be nearly 27 by the time the legal process is complete. Now I wonder not if but how the stigmas will feel as they attach and stack. I'll be unmarried as I approach 30. I thought I'd cleared that stigma, but nope. Then there's the question of whether I can claim "single" or if I have to be "divorced".... a friend of mine said that I'd be doubly damaged goods, coming out of law school with a mountain of debt and proven to be a failure at marriage. As hard as I try to not take that to heart, I can't help it. It really sticks with me.
It's easier and easier to live with Tag the closer we get to moving to different coasts. I know I'm the one who wants the split more, who was more unhappy, who felt less hope... but he seems to be taking it in stride pretty well.
As we tell more and more friends and family, it doesn't get any easier. I feared (and got) rejection from my own family, and some friends have fallen off the face of the earth. Our counselor said people would want to know what went wrong and that people always find someone to blame (with or without information), and we've been pretty great at protecting one another from others knowing the intimate details. Still, as predicted, I'm definitely feeling the blame end of the stick. I am the one moving away, while he is moving home. I will likely be the first one to date again. I'm not asking him for anything, which paints a pretty good picture that I'm at fault for something... I'm certainly at fault for many somethings, but none that people seem to naturally assume. My own mother and brother immediately jumped to the assumption I was a cheating hussy. That felt like a shot of novacain to the heart.
So... I feel a little more than vindicated changing the CA to a VA in my travel plans. I fear I am incapable of roots. I haven't lived in even one apartment for more than a year, and I plan for VA as though it could be 6 months to ??? The Bar Exam is no small undertaking, but I'm self-aware enough to know that it's no anchor, either. I might not know how to handle an anchor. Tag was a great opportunity for roots + anchor, and I think I'll wonder for a really long time how much of our "broken" was my gypsy soul rejecting all the things I thought I wanted and thought I had. At this point, I maintain a pretty confident position that he and I are phenomenal friends and phenomenally horrible spouses to one another. However, there is a nagging feeling in my gut that I'm walking away from a wonderful man who loves me the best he knows how, and I'm selfish for needing more than friendship and ho-hum out of marriage.
Since this is the place where I fitch... I feel it's only appropriate to take a moment to express my frustration with the Bubble. I go to school/exist in the Ave Bubble. The Bubble is filled with a full spectrum of Catholics, from the kool-aid drinking to the avid practitioners who reject the kool-aid to the "de-cath" as a good friend puts it. There are also Mormons and other/non-denom Christians galore. Pretty much, if on was going to go through a divorce, the last place one would want to be is the Bubble. Yet, that's where I am.
Tag and I went to dinner with some old friends who have pretty well become fringe-friends (we only hang out with them at group events), and it was a little awkward of a dinner date in the first place. We were fairly well duped into talking about our separation, but the worst part was they never came out and asked directly. I felt like the info got squeezed out of me, and Tag and I have been nothing but forthcoming with our friends when they ask, despite the pressure from the Bubble.
The standard speech I give to people is that I don't want our friends to get together an "action team" or try to "save" our marriage. I tell people I actually don't mind if they can't handle it, and if it's too awkward to have us around. Esesntially, I hand people in the Bubble a "get out of friendship free" card when I give them the info in exchange for their respect of our privacy and not gossiping (even in "good faith") behind my back. I don't expect that I get to tell people how to deal with the news, but I do feel like I have a right to ask for their respect of my/our privacy.
That's been a hit & miss strategy. Some (very few, but very dear) friends have been phenomenally supportive (of us, individually and together) while being wholly unintrusive. They've even gone so far as to act as shields from the nosier "friends" who seem to want info for their own selfish reasons. That brings me to the second category... friends who proclaim support at the top of their lungs, but offer none. So long as they attempt to respect our privacy as requested, I feel like they care about me at least a little. There's the final category. Friends who are not friends at all. There are few things as heartbreaking as a friend who takes entrusted information and broadcasts and/or spins the info for his or her own selfish reasons. I have been annihilated by one of these in the last few months. She proclaimed support at the top of her lungs, after expressing hurt that I was not "as excited" about her relationship developments as she thought I ought to have been to everyone but me. When the news of her dissatisfaction with me as a friend finally reached me, I went straight to her, and I apologized, and confided my personal life issues that I felt affected my inability to express exuberance towards her engagement (although pictures taken during the announcement show me being pretty darn exuberant). She expressed some sadness, and some regret for not "checking in," and she proclaimed at the top of her lungs that she would be here for me with whatever I needed, she'd keep the info to herself. I cried, we hugged, and I felt reconnected with a dear friend.
She hasn't spoken more than a few off-hand sentences to me in over two months. She's also managed to spread intimate details of my relationship into misinformation among people who hardly know me.
Sadly, I make the above statements with confidence and more corroboration than I wanted. I did some detective work...tried to find some way to clear her from any wrongdoings that have caused me such great pain... all signs point to betrayal.
I leave the Bubble in less than 4 weeks. I have to try to get through a potentially hazardous social situation tonight with her (she has been nicknamed the "C" by a few close friends who've also felt effects of the betrayal). I'm trying so hard to not engage, and to not let the distrust, hurt, and anger permeate to our mutual friends, but she keeps sending me little daggers that make it so hard for me to keep my cool. I pray and hope that this fitching helps drain some of the pressure built up inside me. I want to be graceful in the handling of this publicly, in the sense that I don't want it to be a public issue. I'm heartbroken that I lost what I thought was a best friend, but I'm also terrified that I misjudged our friendship so horrendously. It honestly scares me more than the choosing the "wrong" husband does. I remain confident in my ability to love, but my inability to assign trust properly is clear and painful.
Tag and I are splitting up. We filed for divorce a few weeks ago, and life is in a full upheaval.
The weirdest part about all this is that I feel so much more comfortable with the splitting up than I have with our marriage. There's so much more peace. As terrified as I always have been of getting a divorce, and for as often I've proclaimed that I never would, here I am. I'm 26. I'll be nearly 27 by the time the legal process is complete. Now I wonder not if but how the stigmas will feel as they attach and stack. I'll be unmarried as I approach 30. I thought I'd cleared that stigma, but nope. Then there's the question of whether I can claim "single" or if I have to be "divorced".... a friend of mine said that I'd be doubly damaged goods, coming out of law school with a mountain of debt and proven to be a failure at marriage. As hard as I try to not take that to heart, I can't help it. It really sticks with me.
It's easier and easier to live with Tag the closer we get to moving to different coasts. I know I'm the one who wants the split more, who was more unhappy, who felt less hope... but he seems to be taking it in stride pretty well.
As we tell more and more friends and family, it doesn't get any easier. I feared (and got) rejection from my own family, and some friends have fallen off the face of the earth. Our counselor said people would want to know what went wrong and that people always find someone to blame (with or without information), and we've been pretty great at protecting one another from others knowing the intimate details. Still, as predicted, I'm definitely feeling the blame end of the stick. I am the one moving away, while he is moving home. I will likely be the first one to date again. I'm not asking him for anything, which paints a pretty good picture that I'm at fault for something... I'm certainly at fault for many somethings, but none that people seem to naturally assume. My own mother and brother immediately jumped to the assumption I was a cheating hussy. That felt like a shot of novacain to the heart.
So... I feel a little more than vindicated changing the CA to a VA in my travel plans. I fear I am incapable of roots. I haven't lived in even one apartment for more than a year, and I plan for VA as though it could be 6 months to ??? The Bar Exam is no small undertaking, but I'm self-aware enough to know that it's no anchor, either. I might not know how to handle an anchor. Tag was a great opportunity for roots + anchor, and I think I'll wonder for a really long time how much of our "broken" was my gypsy soul rejecting all the things I thought I wanted and thought I had. At this point, I maintain a pretty confident position that he and I are phenomenal friends and phenomenally horrible spouses to one another. However, there is a nagging feeling in my gut that I'm walking away from a wonderful man who loves me the best he knows how, and I'm selfish for needing more than friendship and ho-hum out of marriage.
Since this is the place where I fitch... I feel it's only appropriate to take a moment to express my frustration with the Bubble. I go to school/exist in the Ave Bubble. The Bubble is filled with a full spectrum of Catholics, from the kool-aid drinking to the avid practitioners who reject the kool-aid to the "de-cath" as a good friend puts it. There are also Mormons and other/non-denom Christians galore. Pretty much, if on was going to go through a divorce, the last place one would want to be is the Bubble. Yet, that's where I am.
Tag and I went to dinner with some old friends who have pretty well become fringe-friends (we only hang out with them at group events), and it was a little awkward of a dinner date in the first place. We were fairly well duped into talking about our separation, but the worst part was they never came out and asked directly. I felt like the info got squeezed out of me, and Tag and I have been nothing but forthcoming with our friends when they ask, despite the pressure from the Bubble.
The standard speech I give to people is that I don't want our friends to get together an "action team" or try to "save" our marriage. I tell people I actually don't mind if they can't handle it, and if it's too awkward to have us around. Esesntially, I hand people in the Bubble a "get out of friendship free" card when I give them the info in exchange for their respect of our privacy and not gossiping (even in "good faith") behind my back. I don't expect that I get to tell people how to deal with the news, but I do feel like I have a right to ask for their respect of my/our privacy.
That's been a hit & miss strategy. Some (very few, but very dear) friends have been phenomenally supportive (of us, individually and together) while being wholly unintrusive. They've even gone so far as to act as shields from the nosier "friends" who seem to want info for their own selfish reasons. That brings me to the second category... friends who proclaim support at the top of their lungs, but offer none. So long as they attempt to respect our privacy as requested, I feel like they care about me at least a little. There's the final category. Friends who are not friends at all. There are few things as heartbreaking as a friend who takes entrusted information and broadcasts and/or spins the info for his or her own selfish reasons. I have been annihilated by one of these in the last few months. She proclaimed support at the top of her lungs, after expressing hurt that I was not "as excited" about her relationship developments as she thought I ought to have been to everyone but me. When the news of her dissatisfaction with me as a friend finally reached me, I went straight to her, and I apologized, and confided my personal life issues that I felt affected my inability to express exuberance towards her engagement (although pictures taken during the announcement show me being pretty darn exuberant). She expressed some sadness, and some regret for not "checking in," and she proclaimed at the top of her lungs that she would be here for me with whatever I needed, she'd keep the info to herself. I cried, we hugged, and I felt reconnected with a dear friend.
She hasn't spoken more than a few off-hand sentences to me in over two months. She's also managed to spread intimate details of my relationship into misinformation among people who hardly know me.
Sadly, I make the above statements with confidence and more corroboration than I wanted. I did some detective work...tried to find some way to clear her from any wrongdoings that have caused me such great pain... all signs point to betrayal.
I leave the Bubble in less than 4 weeks. I have to try to get through a potentially hazardous social situation tonight with her (she has been nicknamed the "C" by a few close friends who've also felt effects of the betrayal). I'm trying so hard to not engage, and to not let the distrust, hurt, and anger permeate to our mutual friends, but she keeps sending me little daggers that make it so hard for me to keep my cool. I pray and hope that this fitching helps drain some of the pressure built up inside me. I want to be graceful in the handling of this publicly, in the sense that I don't want it to be a public issue. I'm heartbroken that I lost what I thought was a best friend, but I'm also terrified that I misjudged our friendship so horrendously. It honestly scares me more than the choosing the "wrong" husband does. I remain confident in my ability to love, but my inability to assign trust properly is clear and painful.
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