Fait Accompli

It is said that if a koi succeeded in battling up the Yellow River and then climbing the last waterfall at a point called Dragon's Gate, it would transform into a dragon.

How does one even begin to describe this?

It was like a bad relationship that you couldn't get out off.

A mad and sordid love affair.

A really bad drug habit.

I am not saying that this was how it was for everyone, but this was how it was for me.

You see, it was against my nature to study. I was not a koi fish, I was more like a cat. Teaching a cat how to swim would have been a noteworthy act in itself, but making it go up a river was another thing. You could try, but it would take a hell of a lot of time. Like the cat was to water, I didn't have a natural affinity for books.

Before you start reading this, if you please, forgive the drama.

I remember that I entered this mad race as a choice, a right of passage, if you will.

Little did I know that it would become this long and protracted war of attrition with myself.

They said that you find God in law school, but they forgot to tell me that you might lose him there too. It is where you learn that you could only find God during the darkest of hours.

Because in law school, you lose your faith a thousand times, but you will have to gain it back a thousand and one more.

It is where you learn more about your indomitable spirit than the letter of the law. Where you scrutinize, criticize and dissect every bit of yourself just to find out what the hell went wrong.

It is where you break yourself and start from scratch each and every day. Where you burn out long before the battle is over. Where you concede again and again and then pick yourself up within the span of one freakin' hour. And after all that, you would have to wring your being for what little strength you have left to move forward.

It is where you grow callused and bruised and tattered and old.

And I do feel very very old.

I had to lose and rebuild myself in law school.

But do not get me wrong. It wasn't all that bad.

Every heartache made success even more luscious and palpable and sweet.

Every disappointment made you stronger and more capable .

And without even noticing it, you become someone who is so far from where you started.

That was law school for me. And I wouldn't have it any other way.

I am better now.

I am stronger. The best swimming cat around.

And now it is done.

I have finished that which I have branded, a million times over, as something that I will never be able to finish. It means that all those years spent will never and did not go to waste. It amounted to something.

I have crossed the Yellow River.

And even though this last waterfall seems like a deep unfathomable chasm,

I am ready to take it on and move all in.

They say that it is only at the precipice that we find the courage to change.