A Reflection
In mid-November 2017, I was at my friend’s apartment in Manhattan’s East Village. The path that had brought him to that apartment at the corner of 13th and 3rd Avenues was, to my outside view, flawlessly executed. A gifted musician and instrumentalist from early childhood, he and his piano, microphone, saxophone, and guitar were inseparable. In 2013, his passion became a bona fide career when a kooky coming-of-age play called Sixteen in 10 Minutes or Less– popular in the American Midwest- was to be performed at our school; midtown Toronto’s Leaside High School. He composed an original score which, to my knowledge, has become an essential component in many of the play’s subsequent performances. This and other achievements propelled him to a position at the Mannes School of Music in New York. He was even awarded an entrance scholarship. Naturally, I am oversimplifying. But suffice to say, my friend never doubted his dream; only the proficiency of his talents as all artists are inclined to do.
For my part, I too had always stood by my own career choice. My long soliloquies were met with “you’d make a great lawyer one day”, “have you considered law school” and “there’s your English degree for you, better save it for a courtroom”. My dream was built partly of my own devising and partly due to comments like these. It never occurred to me to pursue anything else. My parents’ employment, our health, and the comings and goings of neighbours were predictable and stable. My brother and I never argued, my friends were lifelong ones, and I had had amicable relationships with romantic partners. I was cheerful and optimistic.
This changed in 2016 when my grandfather passed away. We were not close in feeling nor distance when he passed in his home village in Greece. I felt saddened but largely unaffected. However, the effect on my mother was catastrophic. Her assuredness and confidence were shattered and she began to reflect on her own mortality and sense of purpose. Suffice to say, the placidity of my life was suddenly blown apart by a tempest of doubt and worry. I began to drink heavily and my closest relationships soured. Upon returning from a summer course I’d taken in Greece in 2016, I resented Toronto and the little I believed it had given me. The following year, mere months before this conversation with my friend, I had again journeyed abroad; this time to Oxford. Once more, Toronto seemed grossly inadequate; a purgatory whose sole purpose was to be the locale of all my pain, doubt, and psychological upheaval.
My friend knew all of this. After all, I was in New York that week because I “just had to” get out of Toronto. And it was as we sat in his East Village apartment that I received an email from the Ontario Law School Application Service. I had missed the application deadline for the 2018 admissions period. My years’ long, slow splitting in two was completed in an instant. My friend sensed that the mood had changed:
“What is it, man?”
“I missed the law school deadline. I can’t go until 2019 at the earliest.”
“Fuck. I’m sorry.”
“Let’s go get a drink.” And we put down our beers to go out for some beers.
I was intent on forgetting the email entirely and worrying about it when I was home again. Graduation was some seven months away and I had not yet written the LSAT nor applied to law school and had no idea where 2018 would take me. It would prove to be a whirlwind.
I completed my final year of undergrad, mustered my remaining strength and did what I could to bolster my resume. In May, it was recommended to me that I chat up the girl working at the Starbucks on the ground floor (I know, a restaurant and a Starbucks).
She helped me study for the LSAT. I wrote it. Out of the blue, I was contacted by someone at a digital marketing company who wanted to interview me. I was hired to write advertisements for Facebook and LinkedIn. The LSAT score came back. I had done fairly well. I recieved my acceptance from Osgoode Hall. My path to law school was reified. My girlfriend and I rejoiced. This past April, my girlfriend and I decided to reward our hard work by taking a trip to New York. I told her I wanted to see something; and we made our way to 2nd Avenue.
We descended the cracked concrete steps and into the amber glow of the Thirsty Scholar. As before, I was speechless; though this time my drink was sipped. My eyes welled and my voice broke a little. I told her that I damned myself by being both naïve and cocksure. I had never interrogated my own desires; let alone empathized with others’. Only inner turmoil could reveal my values to me. I realised all that was taken for granted and all that had been done for me. We toasted a new beginning.
On the first day of O-Week, I ascended the steps and was greeted by beaming faces. Not two hours later, they began to share their own stories of uncertainty and confusion. Yet, these were coming from people with illustrious backgrounds and achievements across disciplines- far exceeding my own, I felt. Maybe it was okay, then, to feel like that. I am grateful to call them my classmates and peers.