2004-01-15 - 10:23 p.m.
I came home to a strew of papers in senseless order, the computer on the chair plugged in to the printer, the trash waiting to be taken out, and a receipt on the counter for two good pens and a chocolate bar.
I have been helping my two friends apply for law school the past twenty-four hours and loving it. While taking less and less interest in attending law school myself, I have nevertheless taken great satisfaction in creating spreadsheets, filing, typing, editting, and worrying to great lengths. It is my instinctual motherness, general aptitude toward this sort of stuff, and returning to familiar times that affords me this pleasure.
Eight months out of college I am still not used to not thinking about, planning, or doing certain things. I am not settled with the idea that there will be no more tests, no more application forms, no more college administration and admissions. As far as I imagine, that time is over. Those times are yet familiar.
In taking the pains--a little more painfully than--my mother took for me to make sure everything was just so in applying to college and for scholarships, I appreciate her a great deal more. I shake my head at myself a great deal more for my stubborness and unwillingness at her kind assistance. And then I check for the same details she did, I insist upon the annoying things she did, and pray that I really do understand the meaning behind this fusiness and am not merely imitating.
