January 7, 2013
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“Walking gets too boring when you learn how to fly.”
Slowly, softly, deliberately, I watched my feet march myself one step at a time closer to school today. I was not looking forward to it. There is so much about school that makes me want to run away–screaming madly all the while. It’s not what I’m learning, it’s not even the workload (although, I’m sure that’s part of it)…it’s more about who I see on a daily basis and how I can’t dump the crazy awkward things that I’ve done. It bums me out.
Naturally, these matters preoccupied my mind. Sometimes my thoughts strayed, other times I was able to redirect them to the case that I might have presented for Constitutional Law. By and large, though, I was concerned about the re-remembering just how bizarre I am…and how I feel like I never fit anywhere. In effect, I was pre-remembering the things I would certainly re-remember in just a few minutes. The thing is, 90% (or more) of it is me/my fault/me holding myself back. Still, realizing that doesn’t make anything more pleasant.
In a lot of ways, law school is WAY more like high school than high school ever was for me. There’s pressure to deal with stuff and people on a repeated basis–I can’t just walk away from it. My high school was big. I could very easily slip into a veil of anonymity and disappear. Now, the student body is roughly half the size of my graduating class. At the beginning, I made a conscious effort to be gregarious and meet people. But, that’s not who I am, and I eventually yearned for the obscurity that I enjoyed in high school. Back then, it was like I had a superpower; I could be invisible. I miss that. Now, however, people know (both of) my name(s) and there is no innocuous anonymity–it’s much more likely that people know me for a reputation, whether good, bad, or awkward, whether it’s a firsthand or secondhand experience. I thought I had left all that angsty teen drama stuff in the past. I was wrong…unless I am stuck in the past, a possibility I can’t rule out.
The quotation that I’ve used is as the title is one of my favorite song lyrics, from my favorite musician. What I love about it is how true it is. I’m confident that if I ever learned to fly, my feet would rarely touch the ground. It makes me wonder if my otherwise pedestrian thoughts would become …Said differently, how would my mind’s morning journey change if I flew to school instead of walked.
For one thing, the trip would be shorter. Not only would I be able to take a more-direct route, but flying is also simply faster than walking. There would be less time to think. I think this might be a good thing.
For another thing, I would be able to get more easily distracted because of the greater field of vision. Where trees had blocked my views before, I can see around them, seeing the grid work of the city’s plan and the tidy, classical layouts of the buildings on their lots across the university. That’s when I think I’d notice a real change in the way I see things. I imagine that I could get above my situation. Just as flying gives me a broader view of what surrounds me, I think that sense of aerial perspective would permeate into my contemplation of myself and circumstances. I’d pretend to be far above me to get a superior view of what’s going on.
Finally, I think I’d feel freer and untouchable. When you can fly, it’s harder to lock you in. That would be an awesome feeling.
So, even though I can’t actually take to the air (despite my best efforts–I just can’t seem to get feathers to sprout from my scapulae), I will pretend to soar on the trek to school tomorrow. Maybe the thought exercise will make time fly–even if I can’t.
