Ginger Pinkerton: 5/1/2022

I have finished law school. 6 semesters. 3 years. Fall 2019 to Spring 2022. On Friday the 29th at 1:00 PM, I began my last ever law school exam. It was for my Evidence class (quite a substantial one to have left for last, would not recommend it--also would not recommend litigating a trial without having taken a class on the rules of litigation--not an amazing strategy). I watched as Canvas counted down the last 9 seconds of my exam before self-submitting. Then I sat there, watching around me as my classmates turned in their scrap papers and exam booklets and left the room. I didn't close out the page for several minutes, anxious even after many experiences taking such exams that for whatever reason it hadn't ended properly or I had messed something up in the submission. By the end of these exams, I am always buzzing internally in a sort of overdrive mode. My fingers vibrate and I am sort of floating by the end.

When we left the exam after about three hours, I hugged my roommate Clare and my classmate Jilly. We had finished. Clare and I went down to our tiny lockers, which we hadn't accessed in quite some time, and emptied them out of old legal writing textbooks that we had never consulted. I don't expect that I will be back in the law school until commencement, if even then.

After each semester concludes, I think I will experience this euphoric relief and joy. Reality never quite matches that anticipation. This semester was no exception. I expected a climactic, euphoric finish to my law school career. Instead, I felt battered and drained. There was not enough mental space left in my brain to experience proper joy. Just tired, even though I had only really had to study for one exam.

To be clear, I definitely felt relief. But it was more of a subconscious thing, and something that didn't surface really until the following days. I didn't consciously and actively feel relief at being finished. I felt vaguely like I had just come out of a traumatic experience. I most certainly do not want to belittle legitimate traumatic experiences--of course, this is an experience I signed up for and stayed with for several years. I could have given up at any point. Nevertheless, by the end of it, I felt kind of as if I had just exited a 3-year long trauma. I am fine, everyone--I am fine. But I have definitely been bruised and scarred! Not sure how someone could finish law school without some bruises and scars. During 1L year, I cried in the shower for the first time in my life. During 2L year, I spent hours upon frustrating hours correcting the minutiae of bluebook citations for articles that a total of four people outside of the law review will read (exaggeration, but then again maybe not).

The evening after the exam, many of us 3Ls were conflicted between wanting to go out to celebrate and having to give in to rest our near-comatose selves. I read for fun for several hours, blissful of being able to stretch out my reading indefinitely, not needing to put it away to do something else. I had a bath and read some more.

I am reading a book about a man from El Salvadore who was a fisherman in Mexico. He was fishing with a 22-year-old first mate, not his usual first mate and not someone with tremendous experience, when they were hit by a historic storm 100 miles from the Mexican coast. This wouldn't have done them in if the motor of their boat hadn't entirely given out a mere 20 miles from shore. In his last radio communication to shore, the man described that he could see the mountains but that he couldn't give his exact location. He implored those on shore to come find them since they could do nothing without their motor and said "I'm really getting fucked out here!" The radio died shortly thereafter. I'm about 65% through the book right now and despite being quite harrowing and anxiety-inducing, it is absolutely captivating.

Now I'm sitting in Starbucks at Cedar Fairmount and thinking about how during these last few weeks I can do whatever I want around or outside of Cleveland. I mistakenly thought that the D.C. bar exam application opened today, so I set out this morning with my laptop to begin that process. I was mistaken, apparently--it does not open until the 12th. So I find myself with even more free time. I want to try to take advantage of this time before leaving Cleveland.

I want to go to the national park, Cuyahoga Valley, and attempt to trail run a little bit more, hoping I can get a mile or two in before my knees threaten me with extinction. I want to go to Good Night John Boys a little bit tipsy in my flare disco pants and blue eye shadow and dance to Earth, Wind, and Fire and Abba and Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons. I want to buy affordable new overstock books at Horizontal Books that I will maybe eventually read two years from now, and I want to play Burgertime and Ms. Pacman at Pins Mechanical. I want to lay out blissfully at Edgewater in my bikini in the sunshine in 75 degrees with a breeze, earbuds in as I drift in and out of consciousness. I want to shake hands with my classmates and school friends and watch them chuckle and shake their heads as they take in the fact that I am shaking their hands despite being beyond that point in our relationship. I want to make Niko laugh at the stupidest shit that no one else finds funny but Niko always does, bless him.

Photos from the last week or so: