--> divine angst: revisionist?

Monday, October 25, 2004

revisionist?

I'm rereading my last post and I don't like it.

I won't delete it because that seems somehow unfair, if even just to myself. I had those thoughts, felt those feelings, and they are valid. But it's just such a crappy post, so self-serving and self-aggrandizing. I hate the tone of it, and its snobbishness.

Frankly, I'm still trying to figure out what happens next. My LSAT score doesn't really change things—I'm still applying to law school, I still want to write and teach—but it has changed the way I feel about myself applying to law school.

One of my good friends, C., who I see so rarely but saw this weekend at our reunion, made the comment that she knew I had done fine on the LSAT. She added that she also knew that I felt my "fine" just wasn't good enough. She was right. I always want to be better than "others," whoever those "others" are. I don't even have to be better than everyone else—just those I think I should be competing with. After all, C. way outclasses me intellectually, and I've never felt the need to compete with her.

So my last post was all about proving that I am still good enough, still smart enough, to be a law professor—or even just to get into a prestigious school. It can be exhausting, trying to live up to my promise. Maybe I should stop groping around for recognition and pay more attention to my happiness.