ChickSpeak

I’ve mentioned before that Will is in law school. When we first discussed law school it was almost a last resort for Will.  He has always dreamed of joining the CIA or Foreign Service, and even took the exam and passed.  However, in one of the later rounds he was turned down. So, having graduated with a criminal justice and political science double major the next logical step was law school. We thought at the time that it could only help him in the careers that he was interested in and it didn’t hurt that most lawyers aren’t hurting for money. So we committed, took out a big loan and Will started the year before our wedding.I now call law school his mistress. We never knew the amount of time and discipline it would require. Nights became lonely for me as Will wouldn’t get home until 8 p.m. and sometimes not until 10 p.m. or later. Family weekends at my parents’ lake house were a balance between trying to relax and have fun but also the requirement to work in reading hours in the mornings. Some weekends weren’t even an option and I either had to go by myself or busy myself around our house until he could break free from his textbooks. 

The first year of law school really tests your true dedication to the field, and the first year of law school coupled with the first year of marriage tests everything you know about yourself and your significant other. As much as I grew to hate the school and how much time it took away from “our” time, my love and admiration for my husband grew enormously. I knew that he was a very hard worker and one of the most determined and disciplined people I had ever known, but to watch it in action made my pride for him swell and my heart almost burst with love and respect. In his almost two years in school he has now secured one of the top rankings in his class, been elected the Associate Chief Justice of the Order of the Crown (a very prestigious organization within the law school), received a merit scholarship for his grades, and earned the respect of his professors and has even helped contribute to their book research. He has truly become my hero and I can’t help but tell him almost daily how proud I am of him.

With all of this hard work you would think that the benefits and opportunities would practically suffocate him.  Unfortunately the economy affected the law community just as bad as everywhere else. For the first time ever firms were cutting positions, canceling summer programs, raising their standards and making it nearly impossible for graduates to obtain jobs and students to acquire internships. Will and I spent hours upon hours compiling cover letters, revising his resume, researching firms and doing whatever we could to try to find him an internship for the summer after his second year. Typically where you intern as a 2L is where you work when you graduate.  In other words no internship = no job after school. 

The rejection letters started finding their way to our mailbox. Sometimes multiple letters in a single day. At first I admired Will’s courage in spite of constant flow of bad news. Then slowly I watched him become more and more defeated.  Its hard feeling completely helpless while seeing the one you love watch his dreams crumble in front of him. All of the hours of reading, late nights studying at the library, countless cups of coffee to try to keep his poor red eyes open, and for what? We received a rejection letter for every single application we sent out.  Our dreams for the future were slowly being crushed.

One day the Army JAG visited campus to conduct interviews for summer internships. Will scheduled an interview and we began extensively researching what it would mean to be a military lawyer. The thought had never crossed our mind. On one hand the thought of moving all over the world seemed exciting and the repayment of our student loans not to mention paid housing and living expenses made it seem like the perfect job.  On the other hand I couldn’t get the thought of Will having to deploy for up to a year and a half out of my mind, and constantly moving could get very old, very quick. But given our situation the JAG was our only option. Will went to his interview and followed with his online application and went ahead and applied for the Air Force JAG as well. Then we waited. That was in October mere weeks after our wedding.

On Christmas Eve we received the call from the Air Force offering Will the job. I almost cried tears of joy. Not only was it a job and a paid one at that, but it was also with the Air Force which meant much shorter deployment terms, nice bases in some desirable locations and most of all it was hope. It was an answer to our prayers. 

So now we are faced with a new challenge, which is actually not all that new to us. Will is moving away for the summer. Three months actually. During our relationship his internships have taken him to New York for a semester, Asheville for a summer and now they would be taking him away again. I am so excited that he has this opportunity, but dreading the alone time more than I can say.

The worse part about it all is that a couple of weeks after he accepted the offer we received a letter restating some details such as the base he would be working at and the term of his internship, as well as clearly explaining that his internship would in no way guarantee a full time job or that he would even be eligible for the full time position. Nothing like a little encouragement.

So we are once again waiting. Waiting to see how the internship goes. Waiting to find out what it will take to secure him a full time position.  Waiting to find out if we will be moving across the world if he does get the job. Waiting to learn when our life will begin and the days of trudging through school and living on pennies will be over. We have been dumped headfirst into learning how to make decisions together as everything from here will greatly change both of our lives. It’s exciting and scary and challenging for us and our marriage. There is no “I” there is only “we” and we have had to learn a great deal of patience, understanding and compromise in just the past few weeks in order to make the best decision for us and for our future. We still don’t know what the future holds for us, but the best thing that has resulted from the uncertainty is the certainty that we will face whatever comes, together.