At a crossroads: Legal and/vs Creative Writing

It was an experience I wasn’t sure I’d know how to deal with when the time came. “But I’m a poet, a writer, can’t imagine my life without my art!”, I’d lament, “And LAW is about to do just this: steal my art!” There was no damn thing I could do about it… Or so I thought.

Daydreaming of what my life would look like 10 years from then, it was packed, to say the least. This is what I mean: I saw myself at my own book launch or giving one of those Ted Talk-type speeches, climbing up the stage to collect my well-earned Nobel Peace Prize for turning the world upside down with my I-Don’t-Know-What invention/global cause, sweeping the judge off his butt in court in stunning female Harvey Specter style, sitting in an office at the UN Headquarters in NYC just being a brilliant-beyond-measure diplomat, and last, but far from least, being Maya Angelou re-incarnated, literally. Yes, somehow I am all these things in the future-in my mind. (Lol!)

So, of course a rather unnecessary internal crisis sets in, but I eventually start law school anyway. Over the months, it hit me. “Why should I have to pin myself in a corner wishing I knew exactly what I wanted to do with my life, how, where, and when?” after all who ever really knows where life leads?

— And then came the paper assignments.

I struggled through the first legal papers (still pushing), mostly out of child-like loyalty to my art. I didn’t want to taint my creative mind, certainly not when it threatened my artistic writing.“But I THINK like a creative! I most definitely write like one!” I whined, “And LAW is about to steal my creative writing too!”

Fast forward

First year of law school (3rd in college) almost over, voila! I have not ran mad, not yet. Trust me, the amount of mental strength and willpower required for one to get through law school involves an ounce of insanity-the good kind(Heheh). I’ve realized I did not have to pin myself in any corner after all. The artist in me should know better that getting exceptionally good at anything means being a little crazy. I can, and should, feel free to spare time to write my poetry or prose. I should also embrace this other set of skills I am learning. In the end, won’t it serve me better to master how to write and think structurally as well as freely? The art and science of writing, at my fingertips.

Long story short;

There IS something I can do about it, and so with everyone else facing the same dilemma. As for my art, only I have the power to let anything/anyone steal. So I quit blaming law school and accept it instead. I know, typical lawyer fake-it-till-you-make-it attitude on fleek, but for real I do. I also fully embrace my art, twice more loyal. Who knows, one day Maya Angelou just might wake up in my bed! (Her awesome soul rest in eternal peace), and I shall be grabbing every prize out there for my contributions!

Fantasies aside though

The crossroads we face are, more times than we may know, non-existent. As long as we are willing to search and see where they merge into one, meaningful experience meant not to break, but to build us…

~NM