Who I am Meant to Be

I was reminded yesterday of how very much I love litigation.  In my honours colloquium, Women and the Law, we posed as fake lawyers and Supreme Court Justices alternatively and argued a real Supreme Court case.  We had to prepare briefs and be aware of the inquiry style of the Justice to whom we were assigned.  It has been so long since I have been in a fake litigation setting that I entirely forgot what it felt like: the exhilarating anxiety, the feeling of my brain finding the central issue at hand and articulating it, the heart-pounding feeling of not having the answer, the amazing ability to bullshit something that somehow manages to be convincing.

I find it very strange.  I really hate speaking extemporaneously.  My brain seems to always freeze and I can't remember what I wanted to talk about.  I especially don't like to be forced to talk when I'm not highly versed in the field.

Now with that last statement in mind, I'm in no way claiming to be highly versed in the law, or even in any specific area of the law.  But somehow, for some reason, when I get up to the podium and begin to articulate a legal argument, and then a panel of "justices" inquires, interrogates, and attacks everything that I say, I get this incredible high and I find a way to combat and to redirect and to figure out what the central issue is.  And I somehow manage to focus on that central point, and hopefully manage to get my point across.

I'm going to get to do it again a week from today in my Con Law class, and I'm beyond excited.  Not because I have some lofty idea that I'm somehow amazing at it.  But because it reminds and affirms that this is what I was meant to do.  Even if I fumble, and falter, and fail, I still have this feeling inside that I can't even begin to describe.  It's just this feeling, this high, this invigorating voice which whispers in my heart and in my soul: "you were meant for this."

And I needed this affirmation.  I'm facing the prospect of LSATs and law school applications and all of these overwhelming things which seem to try and discourage me from pursuing this long-standing goal.  So I'm just so grateful that right when I needed it most, God gave me this affirmation of everything that I am striving to be.