A Letter To My Future Self

Hi Alice,

How’s it going? How’s law school? Did you survive?

I know you will. We both will. We have to.

I’m writing this on the first day of law school. Up to this point, my whole life has been a grand survival show. Growing up, deprivation was both common and intentional. My parents believed I had a grand future to fulfill, so every penny spent on me was an investment that demanded returns. I was told I was ordinary, that every bit I had was mere luck. Just last week I was staring at my cup of unfinished coffee and thought, huh, I just wasted another $3 of my parents’ hard-earned money.

So I clung onto everything that promised safety for me. It took detours to realize that the knowledge of the rules itself could provide that grounding: history, precedent, and theory offered predictability no circumstance could take away. In my little quest I discovered the guilty pleasure of reading constitutional law case briefs, not just for intellectual challenge but for the reassurances they offered: principles that imposed order on conflict against arbitrariness. The more I learn, the more peace I secure, one case at a time.

Both of these values are endangered now.

So, Alice, I will not pile onto the great expectations that you have been and will continue to be subject to, but I do hope you will be remembered for having a kind and generous soul, for being a reliable friend and a trustworthy figure in your community. I hope you will learn, oh my, you will learn so much, but I hope you’re learning not because of escaping something, but in pursuit of something greater than yourself.

All the best,

Alice