Originally written May 18, 2006
I woke up this morning, grabbed myself a beer
The future's uncertain and the end is always near
So let it roll baby roll
As I opened my eyes this morning, everything shot before them. For just that fleeting moment in between your dream and your day, I saw it all, every moment, every heartbreak and joy, I understood the meaning of it all and I let a roar that would have told even the dead that today belonged me.
The last final of law school.
You have no idea what this means, what it took to get here. Unless you've been through it, there is simply no way it can be described. For the nights of waking up in cold sweat terror, finding grey hairs, putting on a solid forty pounds, the drinking, the fighting, throwing up blood, the schemes, the best laid plans, to vengeance, to power, to making money and looking damn good while doing it, to being the best at what I do and what I do ain't pretty. The hardest, the most difficult challenge to everything that makes me who I am, the very essence of everything that this an idea of James McLaughlin, it has all come to this day. And our lives are forever changed; they could never be the same.
In that instant, I saw it all, every memory, every face, every outline, every road, every place. Everything I have done, everything I am and everything I was meant to be, has led up to this last moment of law school. I have never been happier in my life. By the time most of you read this today, I'll be sitting on the front steps of the law school, cigar in hand, pint by my side, screaming to the high heavens that I made it. For J.J., Dorothy, Bernie, the beef league boys, the CRs, the law school, the undergrad, from Chicago to Austin, London to D.C....to Kansas.
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