Other than the mind-numbing, teeth-disintegrating stress.
● The sense of purpose.
● Always having too much reading or briefing to breathe, and just adoring it.
● Bounding out of bed at six in the morning with my stomach an absolute coil of barbed anxiety.
● Knowing my mother would never even consider driving four and a half hours to arrive unannounced.
● My wonderful, wonderful, beyond fabulous apartment. Completely adored that thing.
● The piano teacher Koreans who lived below me in said apartment. In my second bedroom (the art room) I could hear the students playing, and they always had some strange concoction wafting through the floorboards so I never felt alone.
● Taking a walk around the pond on the premises of said apartment at night, just meandering around and glancing in the windows, wondering what transpired within.
● The Plant Man at said apartment. This Neil Young doppleganger had an entire garage and apartment of plants.
● Tucking into the library or the Auditorium, all of us studying together alone.
● Happening upon a group of high-wire 1Ls and emitting some variant of loud noise. They ricochet like super balls.
● Listening to Sirius radio during the four-and-a-half hour drive to school every Sunday evening.
● The skydivers who soared right over the freeway roundabouts the three hour mark during warmer months.
● The ladies at the gym every morning, who decided to adopt me as a surrogate daughter and always inquired as to my progress.
● The guy at the coffee shop who would ask me every morning as I acquired four shots of espresso, “Are you an attorney yet?” When I shook my head he would shrug, “Keep trying.”
● Warmer, longer summers.
● The entire town essentially revolving around orange and blue.
● The cherry trees that lined the road leading to my parking spot at school.
● Studying at the arboretum, and taking breaks to watch the horticultural students investigate one thing or another.
