Growing Pains
This life isn’t giving what y’all said it was supposed to gave. “Go to college…can’t get a job without a degree” said all of you!
My mom told me that going to college was a requirement for me to continue my life (you know she brought me in this world and she can take me out of it, right?) and she told me to find a way to pay for it. Well, I complied. And that compliance cost me $160,000 student loan debt for this juris doctor degree that I still don’t quite know how to use. As a child, I imagined a college degree as an elevation of life yet I still spend my evenings banging on the bathroom door to for my teenage sister to come out because, you guessed it — I live at home with my parents.
I’ve always wanted to be a lawyer and to help people, and being a public defender is the perfect niche — but it’s the perfect niche at every literal cost. My soul bleeds for each of my clients, making me emotionally unavailable for my loved ones, and most importantly, for myself.
My wallet is famished. I told myself I’d never eat Maruchan Ramen after I got my lawyer job — what do you think I had for lunch today? Joint income or side hustling is the only way to stay financially afloat as a public service lawyer. Would I be good at bartending? Would I still love my partner the same if he didn’t have such high earning potential? Too often, I grapple with the idea of selling out of public service work to be rich and even more depressed in a big law firm.
Unfortunately, now I understand why all those attorneys I sought out for advice told me not to go to law school — it wasn’t malice, they were trying to save me. I made a personal vow to never tell an ambitious, aspiring lawyer, like I once was, not to follow through. I broke that promise last week. I don’t wish this depth of regret on anyone. Regret is a pain you can’t rid of with ibuprofen — so my nightly glass of Merlot continuously gets more full, like many others in this profession.
And still I rise, holding my head high and picking my afro as tall as she will stretch each morning; coffee in hand, dapper in appearance, soul empty and desolate — walking façade.
This cannot be the life y’all told me to strive for.
There’s gray curls trapped in the teeth of my hair brush. My biological clock is ticking and my mom is asking for grandchildren. I’ve popped pills, I’ve shot up hormones, I’ve inserted intrauterine devices all to prevent a godforsaken stewing of offspring in my stomach. My worst fear in life is creating another Black life to exist in this world.
I don’t want to bring another Black man in this world for obvious reasons. With my first hand experience of living this life as a Black woman, I can confidently say I don’t want to bring another Black woman into this world to experience that either. God forbid I create a Black Trans life only to be prematurely silenced. Why would I volunteer to be four times more likely to die during childbirth than a non-Black birthing parent? I’m not ready to die — especially not before I see this lawyer thing pay off.
I’m educated, broke, depressed, and aging. Is this how Plankton feels when he screams “I went to college”? Is it a declaration that he is owed more in life than his failed restaurant, the Chum Bucket, because he went to college?
I should’ve taken my ass to culinary school like I wanted to.
I feel like all my hopes and dreams and everything I ever believed in has died. But my granny told me to shut up — “It’s just growing pains.”
