Last night I had the strangest dream…

For some reason I was on a journey, traveling up this road where I was eventually joined by my brother. We were passing by this ranch that was having a festival, kids running around, riding ponies, everyone having a good time, and this song was playing from somewhere, a song I recognized from years ago:

“Don’t wanna lose to loneliness…
Girl I know we can win!
Don’t want to lose to emptiness, oh no…
Never again!

Don’t wanna lose you now…
Baby, I know we can win this!
Don’t wanna lose you now…
No no, or ever again!”

Yep, Backstreet Boys. Y’all can stop snickering now. Truth is though, I hadn’t heard this song in over 7 years, so it’s a bit weird (to say the least) that it would come up in a dream now. I can’t remember the last time I’ve ever dreamt about an actual song too, especially one I’ve since completely forgotten about.

Tell me, what does that mean?

Lies, betrayal, and deceit at long last put the final nail in the coffin of my law school dreams.

Well I wanted an answer, and after 18 months I finally got it in spades. When it happened, my anger once again reared its ugly head as I began to shake my fist at God for all the grief He’s allowed me to endure, but afterwards I began to resign myself to my fate. In a way I’m glad it’s over. While I may be destined to drift through life with no sense of purpose or meaning, I was at least relieved of the trauma 3-4 years of law school would almost certainly have brought me.

But after taking communion and reflecting on the events of the past week, I was directed to read Psalms 73 and Psalms 92, verses that talk about God taking vengeance on our enemies. So maybe this isn’t quite over just yet.

In any event, I wonder why I had to enter my thirties still without any clue as to what career might best suit me. I grew up falling in love with the notion of solving mysteries and clearing cases, and because of it I always thought law enforcement was where I belonged. For whatever reason I loved the idea of justice, of being the guy who could help put right where people did wrong. The shows I watched and the books I read all fed my passion of uncovering hidden truths, exposing lies, solving crimes, and of course, catching the bad guys.

I started college with my heart set on what I thought was the right profession. I had dreams, aspirations, and eagerly looked forward to a promising future in the career of my choosing. I saw myself being well established in the profession by the time I turned 30, married to the love of my life, and perhaps even a father to several wonderful children.

Instead, graduation from college would see me become unemployed for almost 2 years, then evicted illegally onto the streets, and finally trapped in a dead end job as a no name clerk. At 30 years of age, I had accomplished nothing. I was a failure. I was nothing more than a vagabond with a job, a helpless prey to my enemies.

It was evident that only God could salvage the mess that I had made of my life. And it is what I hope for, in spite of all the fist shaking.

One of the things that has made it darn nigh impossible for me to make a decision about law school is the fear that I may be trading in a job I hate for a future job I’ll hate even MORE.

The truth is, my current job really isn’t so bad, relatively speaking. I only have to work about 35 hours a week, I get four days off every other weekend, and if I work fast enough, I usually have the last few hours of work to myself for doing pretty much whatever I want (short of leaving). I have a decent salary and excellent medical benefits, along with a pension plan that would provide enough reasonable security for me when I retire. The people I work with are for the most part pretty decent folks, and I don’t even have to dress formally (I haven’t worn a suit in several years).

But the work itself is a mindless drudgeship, the kind where I truly have little to no impact on anything. For the most part, I simply proofread documents and perform data entry for hours at a time, until my brain gets so numb I have to take a moment to collect myself lest I should lapse into a coma.

I always thought I was meant for bigger and better things, and the thought of continuing this drudgeship for another 30 years frightens me to no end.

But what frightens me even more is giving up the security blanket I enjoy now for a career that will make this current job seem like paradise. What really, am I getting myself into here? Will I really enjoy being an attorney, or will I find it so unrewarding, so aggravating an experience, that I will yearn for the days of old when the only trial I had to endure was the daily drudgeship of entering documents into my department’s database? It’s almost a certainty that my first job (post-law school) would offer little security, inferior benefits, and a hostile work environment where I’m pressured to perform, and deal with a crushing workload. Instead of enjoying an atmosphere where nothing short of burning the place down would have any serous repercussions for me, I would instead be dealt a greater responsibilty where people’s lives may literally be in my hands, and one little screwup could cause utter catastrophe for them (and me). Do I really want to handle that kind of responsibility?

As I read the primers and study some of the materials people use for law school, my mind does seem able to grasp the legal principles easily enough, and I do enjoy performing a “lawyer like” analysis of hypotheticals. But then again, there’s some days when I just don’t bother at all with it. Even if I couldn’t get enough of playing with hypos, it only provides a glimpse into what I may be doing as a lawyer. The profession requires excellent networking skills (which I don’t have) and the ability to relate and socialize with people (which I don’t have). It would also require the ability to sift through dry legal material, while in turn writing dry legal documents in the form of motions, briefs, memos (and whatever else it s that lawyers write). Is this something I can do competently, and more importantly, is it something I could ENJOY doing?

I simply don’t know. I’m so confused and perplexed right now that my decision is literally changing by the moment. The other night I was resolved to go to law school, having firmly made up my mind, only to wake up the next morning with a sense of sheer dread that I was making the biggest mistake of my life. The $150,000 price tag alone guarantees that if my decision to go to law school turns out to be a mistake, it would be a mistake I’ll have to pay for for as long as I live.

Too bad I can’t win the lottery. Having 200Gs or so to play with would obviously make this decision a little bit more palatable. I’d lose nothing by trying, and I could always go back to my old job (based on the one year grace period I might be granted).

But alas, I must deal with reality. On the one hand I can accept a life that is secure, but boring and unfulfilling, or a life that may turn out not to be a life at all, where I end up pissing away those things I’m taking for granted now.

Or maybe there’s a third option that has still to make itself known…

One of the reasons my blogging has been so sporadic is that I am attempting to come across as a mellow, mild mannered, polite good old boy.

In other words, the exact opposite of who I really am.

To be sure though, there are many facets to my personality. I can indeed be mellow, lighthearted and fun loving. But there’s a darker side to my personality, one I try to bury (with little success) both in real life and on the Net. It’s the kind of personality that has gotten me banned from various different forums and censured in others, and even almost arrested a few times. Some people write me off as a hateful ne’er do well, while others (perhaps out of morbid curiousity) stick around just to see what I’ll say next.

I’ve always despised this part of my personality, wishing instead that I could always give off all the warmth of a cuddly teddy bear named Bobo, instead of the (thankfully occasional) demeanor of a hammerhead shark that hasn’t eaten for weeks.

The fact is, I’m an angry white man with a lot of issues that I need to work out, and I’ve been debating over whether I should use my blog as an outlet for some of these issues I’ve been trying to deal with. My temper has been known to spill out at inappropriate times, and though I’m almost never violent, I have been very violent with words. Words are my stock in trade, and mine can often cut to the heart if I’m not careful.

But honestly, I’m getting tired of walking on eggshells. I know people get turned off by those who aren’t happy 7 days out of the week, or who must always have a pleasant demeanor lest they should flee away and never befriend them again. But since I have no readers or friends, I really have nothing to lose here by letting loose. Perhaps clearing the air will prove to be a theraupetic exercise for me. Then again, perhaps not. But at least in this sense I’m being more true to who I am as a person, rather than just putting up a more benign facade just so I won’t scare people off.

The truth is, I’ve become very bitter. Like a wounded animal that snaps at anyone who gets too close, even those who just want to help, I find myself trying to deal with painful and open wounds that deeply affect my psyche, wounds that refuse to be healed even years after they’ve first been inflicted on me. It’s made me bitter and angry, at a loss for answers, and wondering how I managed to sink so low. In my journey to find truth and justice in this world, I hope part of that journey will see me escaping this mire of bitterness I’ve created for myself. Only time will tell though whether that will be the case.