Circumlocutions

‘Tis the season! The finals season, as opposed to the holiday season. The two are nearly similar: one is  a time of bitterness, depression and strife; and finals season is even worse.

Allow me to pause while you groan.

Being a non-traditional law student gives me a unique perspective on finals. My day job is extremely flexible and I am able to take days off to study; and my family – my wife, since the kids are too young to have a real say – is also supportive and wonderful, letting me study in (relative) peace while I’m home.

That  being said, life for a non-traditional student does not stop during finals. I can’t study through the night since I have a family to pay some modicum of attention to and work to go to (early) the next morning. I can’t focus my entire brain power solely on the issues of the semester since I have a job that requires the use of my brain. How fondly I recall my days doing construction work! Ok, not so fondly…

What’s the hardest part of working full time, going to school in the evenings and having a family?

I’m on track to graduate in 3 years and a summer from a 4 year evening program; that’s great. My wife’s on board, despite the fact that she has the hardest role to play – basically that of a single mother.

I see my kids on the weekends and the youngest wakes up before I leave, and that’s hard; but my wife deals with them every day. She makes them breakfast, gets the oldest to school in the morning and drops the youngest off at the babysitter, goes to her part time job, picks them up and watches them, goes out with them, gives them dinner, bathes them and puts them to bed by herself – a job not made any easier by being pregnant.

I think the guilt that I’m making life harder for her coupled with the helplessness that it’s still the best thing I can possibly do at this point is the hardest thing to deal with.