| When Tim and I broke up I felt awful. Then I felt better. Then I felt fine. And then I felt great. Things were going really well---I finished the paralegal program with honors, I did well enough on the LSATs to get recruited by a law school, and I quit my job and went to Seton Hall. It happened really fast because I was always busy. Between the end of March and the beginning of August I stopped feeling like I was doing things wrong all the time and started feeling something I hadn't felt in awhile. Confidence. Sitting on the train on the first day of orientation, I didn't give myself a pep talk. It would probably be more expected for me to say something like, "I knew I was going to try to talk to as many people as possible, and make lots of friends," but that would be a lie. I didn't really think a whole lot on that ride into Newark Penn, mostly because my friend Eve was taking the train as well (to work), I hadn't seen her in awhile, and we were catching up. Next thing I knew, I was walking up the steps of the law school building, which I only knew was located where it was because John took me there the week before, basically holding my 23-year-old adult hand along the way. As I knew would happen, I didn't know anyone. Only then did I start to feel awkward. I got some coffee and decided to sit by myself next to 30 other by-themselv-ers outside before the morning welcome speeches commenced. I looked at those people who already had "friends" and probably knew they were going to be in law school for more than a year, maybe even Seton Hall. I felt pretty out of place, not being able to swap war stories about the overwhelming application process, since mine had been way easier than undergrad. I contemplated talking to the guy next to me who also seemed nervous and kind of lonely, but decided I was still too tired to make a really good effort. Then, it was time for the speeches. There were many many many seats set up in the Atrium (which is pretty beautiful by the way) and those of us who hadn't made instafriends just walked to any random row and moved all the way over, sitting next to strangers who might have cooties. The row I picked was close enough to the "stage" so I wouldn't have to squint to see who was speaking (those of you with glasses/contacts know what I'm talking about) and as it turned out as I moved all the way over, contained a pretty unfriendly and unhygienic gentleman. I sat down, and a friendly guy sat next to me on the other side. I could work with him. There were two other people at the end of the row, another guy and a female. This is important. It was at this point that I decided I was awake enough, and I was going to be friendly and likeable. I started talking to the friendly guy to my left who turned out to be from Georgia (the state) and sort of afraid of facebook. I learned this because the guy sitting to his left brought up the facebook group which of course I knew nothing about that had all of our assignments posted on it. This facebook group contained many of the members of the class of 2011. I had to know more. I had to get in. We talked about several other things including appropriate orientation wardrobe. I wore a skirt to Seton Hall for the first and last time that day. Georgia had on khakis and a collared shirt, so did Facebook Group. Must be nice to be a guy. You can't go wrong with khakis and a polo when in doubt. Facebook Group made a joke about how his brother was a 3L and told him people wore anything during his orientation from a suit to sandals. I liked Facebook Group. I wanted to hear more from Facebook Group. Georgia on the other hand was kind of getting weird. He started lecturing Facebook Group and me about the dangers of facebook. I hate lectures about the dangers of facebook. Facebook Group made a comment to Georgia about how he shouldn't take things too seriously, but the comment especially impressed me, because it was the kind of comment that a funny person makes to an oblivious person when they are kind of making fun of them around other non-oblivious people, knowing the oblivious person won't pick up on it, but that the other non-oblivious people will appreciate it. It was my kind of comment. Georgia then started telling us that he was interested in medical school, and Facebook Group and I were confused. Facebook Group and I basically talked to each other with Georgia in the middle for a few minutes, without Georgia paying attention to the fact that our conversation wasn't in line with his. Then the Deans came. The speeches were awesome, but I won't bore you with them except to say that the Dean mentioned that some of us would find our future husbands and wives at Seton Hall Law. One of the professors (who would later turn out to be my Civil Procedure professor) gave the Dean an article from the newspaper about that very thing earlier in the day. It was about two attorneys who met at Seton Hall Law, and the Dean read some quotes about one of them falling in love with the other one's blue eyes on the first day of orientation, etc. etc. It was an intentionally humorous article, and everyone laughed a lot. He told us that perhaps one of the people sitting next to us would be our future partner. I hoped not, and doubted it. Then more speeches and then it was time for us to go to our scheduled ethics questions seminars. The seminars were broken up into small groups, by Section, and then by whatever. Everyone scattered. I knew Georgia's name, though I forget it now. I didn't know Facebook Group's name. I caught up to him and asked him his name, and he told me it was Tim. I kind of thought, "Wow God, really?!" and laughed on the inside. I introduced myself. I asked where he was going and he told me and I asked him if he knew where my room number was. Different room. He didn't. We said some kind of "see you around" and separated. Facebook Group doesn't know this, but I quickly looked at my handy room assignments, tracked the room he said he was going to down on the page, and discovered we were in the same Section, for the year. I smiled (in public! while walking by myself!) knowing I'd see Tim again. I met a lot of people that day, and made a lot of new friends. There were many cute boys at law school. I liked it a lot. I didn't actually see Tim again that day until I was waiting in line to buy my pounds of books at the bookstore. I wasn't sure if he was going to say hi to me or not because he was walking by and I was in line, and also it hadn't escaped my attention that earlier he didn't stop to ask me my name, but I had to catch up with him to get his. Maybe Tim didn't want to be my friend. Maybe he had a lot of friends already, who had been facebook friends from the facebook group I wasn't in, who now were real friends. But when Tim saw me his face lit up. And when he said "Hi!!!!" he smiled for real, and I could tell he was really happy to see me again. He asked me what Section I was in. Knowing already we were in the same one, I said "C." He said "Me too!!! Alright! I'll see you tomorrow!" and that was that. At that moment I knew that my weird feeling from earlier was getting weirder. I can't be more specific about what I "knew" at that moment though, because it's one of those things that can't be explained. Some people have felt it, some people haven't. Some people have felt it in the past, but forgot about it over time, and maybe it comes back but when it does they don't recognize it at first. Some people don't believe it, and some people think it's a lie. But I believe it, because I felt it. And I felt it every day after that that I saw Tim. First when we were friends, then when we starting dating, and now that we're in a relationship. I learned later from Tim that when he saw me in line that day he thought for sure I was going to be in another section, but that when he found out I was in his, he couldn't believe his luck. He also eventually told me that he had a feeling about me too, and he couldn't explain it. I wonder if both people have to have "a feeling" about the other person for that feeling to exist. I guess I'm just one lucky SOB because it did. There is a lot more to the development of us getting together. Even though we both basically were attached at the hip, we were also both extremely cautious, but kind of in different ways. By the end of the first week of law school Tim asked me out, and I said maybe next week. That weekend there was basically a hurricane in NJ but he drove up to see me anyway. He must have really liked me. At the end of the night I was really ambivalent about everything for a lot of reasons. The next weekend we were supposed to hang out again, but I cancelled. Sometimes I'm awkward and do nervous things. I thought it would be irresponsible to date someone in my class, especially since he was my best friend at school and we were making a pretty great group of friends. (Seriously, everyone is jealous of us, lol(?).) What if something bad happened? I didn't know a whole lot about him. The next weekend I did go visit him though, and we went out agian. After that night I was really starting to like him. The next weekend I brought him to a Scotch Plains house party and he met a lot of my friends from home. He was more than impressive. Everyone liked him and he was so good with everyone. This continued throughout September and October, and on Halloween I went to a party his bff's were having and met all of his friends. All of his friends liked me. In fact throughout the night his friends kept taking me aside and individually telling me how much he liked me, and that he can't stop talking about me, that they were glad that meeting me didn't break the idea that they had of me from Tim's description, and that it meant a lot to them too that I appreciated him and let him be himself. I felt really awesome after these conversations, because I don't think guys usually go out of their way to tell the girls that their best friends are dating that they're awesome, and happy they're together. Guys just don't do that. It was getting harder for us to act like we weren't exclusive, even though we weren't. We got into several "nothing fights" about it. Neither one of us really wanted to make it exclusive, but both of us kind of realized it already was. I can't really speak for Tim on this so much, but for me it wasn't really that I didn't want to be in a relationship, just that everything was going so well the way it was. We were on the same page about everything. I didn't want to fix something that wasn't broken. But one night I basically told him that if he starting dating other people I wouldn't date him anymore because it would really hurt me. He confirmed that he would be hurt if I dated other people as well. And after addressing this on several occassions, and getting into several other "nothing fights" about other important things that we had been holding back on discussing, we both realized that we were already in too deep to not be attached, and just sort of jumped in. Most of the people in our Section already figured something was up, probably because we get along so well (and see previous "attached at the hip" comment). I want everyone to meet him because he's amazing. I haven't met anyone who doesn't like him, except for a jealous fake-ex-hs-egg-baby-husband. We really are ridiculously good together, I can't even believe it. He likes things about me that previous boyfriends haven't, he appreciates my quirks as well as many other things about me, and we kind of look at the world in a similar way. Everyone who knows me knows how much I value when people appreciate each other. We joke about the Dean's speech at the beginning of orientation, because even though it seems ridiculous in some ways, I guess we both can't help thinking it's kind of a weird coincidence (if that's what it is). We even talk about inviting the Civil Procedure professor who gave the Dean that article to our wedding if we get married. It is nice to be dating someone who doesn't unreasonably freak out about this stuff, and just accepts it for what it is. As for me I pretty much think he's the best thing. I can't stand the corny-gushy stuff though, so enough of this. For now here is a short list of Tim facts: - He's a football fan, and even better a Giants fan
- He's ridiculously smart, especially about international relations and politics
- He's hilarious
- He enjoys Boy Meets World, The Office, and Heroes
- He's interested in public interest work (especially public defense, like me) and patent law
In conclusion, I feel pretty grateful that my decisions in the past couple of years led to this, among the other hopefully promising aspects of my future. I've got 4 days until my first final, and I'm scared! |
