Four Days of the Condor

Originally written December 11, 2006

As we have begun before, as we keep finding ourselves in these situations. And the book says we may be through with the past but the past is not through with us.
Where we have been and where we are going, the reoccurring theme of this past year. Where we have been tonight is a memory, a place in time that could not be recreated even if we held our hands together and tried.

We return to the basement apartment and the sleepless nights, to the moments we thought were being wasted away, when in fact something all along was brewing, something underneath the surface that had always been there. We just had to give it a name.

It was early in the spring semester of my sophomore year of college, and I had just begun to research what law schools I might attend in the years ahead. As if I would have really been allowed to leave, tried as I might, there was simply no where else that I belonged.

College had come to me with a much greater ease than high school ever had, and I begun to appreciate that my results were within the highest echelon for the intellectuals. In that moment of realization of self importance, for the first time the thought occurred – why not me. Why couldn’t I be the valedictorian? Resonating with me for years, I understood that I could play any role that I so chose. That there was nothing I couldn’t do, that no one would be able to tell me otherwise. It was right there all along, we just had to give it a name.

Of course the first breath of law school is supposed to be agonizingly difficult, for its sole purpose is to eliminate the weak among the pack before they waste any more time. There are enough stories as there are excuses for why I did not come through. I can take great relief in the fact that I remember very little about that year, for I was never in the game. In the end though, if I had achieved in the opening set what I earned in the remainder of my time, I would have finished in the top fifteen students in my class. I still crossed that finish line to find ourselves a great pride in that much maligned building at the bottom of the hill.

And now we are back to our reality, where once again I have to prove myself. This time, there will be no questioning whether or not I belong with those students, whether I could compete with the gunners, the four level kids, the elite. This time, the only demand upon me is that I set the bar for this law school.

Four exams in the next seventy-five hours. The outcome of which sets the standard for which the law school will measure their students by, and ultimately reward the inaugural scholarships upon. The entire school, the students, the faculty, they look to me as the leader of the student body, the one that could and should be teaching these courses, the foundation for which they will stake their academic and professional reputation in the western hemisphere upon.

Four days to prove I’m the best at what I do and what I do ain’t pretty. No one can take that away from me.

You want to know what pressure is, try playing the hero everyday.