Rememory

Here I sit, one week after I finished my last law school exam. I left it shaking so hard that my fingers dialed "Mo" instead of "Mom." Convinced I failed and just so disappointed that yet again I felt unprepared for the questions I was pressed to answer, I sobbed to my poor mom over the phone. I'm sure she's had many sleepless nights worrying about me these past few years. I've since calmed down a bit, or maybe I just succumbed to helpless apathy. Anything is possible at this school, with these professors (or so it seems), so I know I won't fall asleep easily until I see passing grades posted online.

I've spent the week feeling a new kind of antsy insecurity. What am I supposed to be doing now, now that I've committed to giving myself two weeks off from the job search and I literally have nothing to do. What are all the other people doing on a trail run at 10 a.m. on a Monday? Why is there traffic at approximately 11:30 a.m.? Who are all these people having white wine spritzers with a 2:30 p.m. lunch? After told firmly by a friend, "You're being too hard on yourself. Give yourself a break." I think I am finally starting to unwind. I know it'll take me months to fully unwind. My goal: to have someone tell me (as they used to!) that I'm really laid back. Can you imagine?

Sometimes I sits and thinks, and sometimes I just sits.
I plan my days around a run. I stop at the grocery store almost every day to get ingredients for a meal I decide to make an hour before I get hungry. I sit in my chair and listen to my favorite news radio show every afternoon at 2 p.m. It took me a good six days before I even wanted - or had the attention span - to read the newspaper. I go for walks listening to my "quiet" mix every evening. I sneak a beer into the park to enjoy while watching the sunset. I watch the whole sunset.

I think it will take me a long time to find myself and to gain back my confidence and energy. I don't just feel burned out, I feel beat up. I feel like I lost myself somewhere in the last there years. I forgot simple things, like that I am not a boring person and I can laugh. Fortunately, human coping mechanisms are amazing. I'll get back to the point where I believe other people when they tell me I am smart. I already find that I've forgotten just how miserable I have felt because my coping mechanisms tend to block out the horrible and only remember the good. In eager anticipation of wakeless nights, I suppress all traumatic rememory and welcome any healing retelling of the story of Who I Am.*

* "Rememory" is a term that Toni Morrison made up in her book, Beloved. It is a kind of psychic haunting in which the specifics of a traumatic incident are told and retold, even as the teller tries to block their full emergence into the conscious mind. Through compulsive repetition, one's narrative is constantly being both torn apart and reconstituted. Memories are constantly being both exhumed and buried, and the mind of the storyteller is both imprisoned and set free in the act of retelling. Rememory is both a reconciliation and a vexation, both a healing and a wounding. Read the book or see more here.

Rainy Sunday

Today it's drizzling here, which for Denver, is as rainy as it gets. I've been at the library for 5 hours, but I'm heading home to do work there. Not much else to report, except that I went for a nice walk last night. Denver's so quiet and there are a couple streets with fantastic, beautiful houses.

I listened to this RadioLab show the other day on "Falling." There was one story on it that was so sad! It's about a guy who has face agnosia (an inability to recognize faces) and how he and a girl fell in love, and then out of it. You can find it here. It's the second story, approximately minute 10 to minute 20. The part that really struck me as sad starts at about 19:35 to 21:00. Check it out if you have 10 minutes.

Officially an Intern

Wowzers, I am pretty tired after my first day of work! I'm interning at the American Bar Association. They have an international division called Rule of Law Initiative and I am working within their Latin America and Caribbean office. So far it's great! Basically we are consultants for international development that focuses on legal systems and promoting good governance and rule of law. The projects involve developing legal systems and laws, implementing reform to make countries have better governance and stronger rule of law. They just got grants to start multi-year projects in 3 countries: Guatemala, Nicaragua, and Belize. They already do work in Mexico, Ecuador, and Panama. I'm super excited and already have fun assignments to work on. For example, part of my job is to read news from Latin America (in English and Spanish) and keep the group informed about daily going-ons. How cool is that!?

Other cool things about the internship: there is a roof top for eatin' lunch, a park a block away, the White House a block away, it's a 20 min walk from my apartment, I have my own nice cube, computer, printer, phone and desk, there's a fitness center (yet to be seen) and my hours are 9-5:30ish. Hurrah!

I made a little shopping trip because I felt a little under-dressed. I also signed up for the JCC gym which is across the street from my sublet apartment. I'm pretty exhausted and didn't get much done on the paper front. Boo.

Update

One test down. Doesn't feel good, but I have to move on to the next. There's nothing I can do about it now, anyway.

Walked home after. It's 14.8 degrees outside and slight flurries. I actually was warm because I walked fast and wore this:

tights
alpaca socks
jeans
tee shirt
sweater
fleece coat
fat puff coat (down)
waterproof tall boots
gloves
hat

I listened to my favorite radio show, The World, which is on at 4 p.m. ET, 2 p.m. MT (so I never get to listen to it normally). And, it only takes 10 minutes more to walk from school (55 min total) than it does to take the bus from school (45 min total).

On to the next final...