It's Not All Its Cracked Up to Be.

I hadn’t written a word for at least twenty minutes. My brain was heavy with a fog of nothing. It had shut down in the area of thinking and writing and I couldn’t have cared less.

I looked around the room to the serious faces, concentrating, wanting to get a great mark. They had probably swotted every night for weeks and the brains of these people were sending vital information to the hand that held the pen.

One guy was chewing the end of his pen furiously, as if he hadn’t eaten in a week. Then he started to cough as the tiny bits of plastic went down his throat. He reached for the water bottle on his table and took a big swig. Relief showing on his face in feeling that he could once again breathe and finish the exam!

The girl in the back corner, wearing the kind of glasses that make you look even smarter than you maybe were, had a kind of smugness to her face. An ‘I’ve already finished this exam’ look. She was going over her paper because she had plenty of time to spare. ‘She’ll probably be a High Court Judge one day’ I thought as she pushed the smartie spectacles up on her face.

I could hear the guy next to me heavy breathing. He was definitely worrying about what was on the paper - there was a lot of stress in those long loud breaths. He had probably crammed all night having not looked at a book for quite some time before today, and was telling himself that he should have stayed at home and studied instead of listening to his loser friends.

Glancing up at the wooden rimmed clock on the wall out front, I realised that there was only twenty-two minutes left to finish the exam and I had been sitting day dreaming for the last half an hour.

I was thinking about how over the last two weeks I had just come in, sat down and finished the other exams – in fact I had probably done very well, but today was not the same. It was as if, overnight all of my interest in becoming a lawyer had left my heart. It felt strange.

I had felt like this only once before. I was a year into my degree and began to feel quite disillusioned with it. I would turn up to my classes without too much enthusiasm, and get through it, having not enjoyed it at all.

I think I was enjoying my outside interests a bit too much.

I had joined a couple of voluntary ‘social conscience’ groups – not at the university but outside of it. I really enjoyed being a part of them. I helped out at a local recreation centre for teenagers and one other night I kept reception at a local drug and rehab centre where the clients were mostly teenagers , so I could connect very easily with them, a lot from being roughly the same age, and could discuss music, bands, technology and various other subjects.

Sometimes I wondered if I would ever represent any of these kids in court, then thought ‘not if I have my way!”

I didn’t tell anyone from the family for obvious reasons, but one night as I was walking through the front door my mother, who never pried about anything I did, pulled me aside and said in a quiet voice “Do not let your father find out about what you’re doing, or there will be trouble.”

I knew what she meant.

As soon as I got up this morning, I had felt different and questioned whether it was perhaps on my way home last night I had helped a young girl who had obviously overdosed on something, while waiting for the ambulance. Afterwards I had felt rewarded by just knowing she would be ok.

 A voice in my head was whispering continually that maybe I didn’t want to do law - I was being pulled away from this path and towards a different one– whatever that was, it was not the course I was taking.

I understood when I heard the phrase ‘writers block’ now. I had it, and I couldn’t be bothered fighting it… all I felt was disinterest and apathy, as if I couldn’t and shouldn’t be here. So, I picked up my partly finished paper, writing implements and drink bottle and off I went.

I could feel the eyes of the class on me and when I heard Mr. Finnigan ask me what I thought I was doing, and I answered “Getting the hell out of here”, I saw a couple of mouths open in astonishment.

“Excuse me young man” he said in astonishment “If you leave this room, you fail automatically”.

“Oh well I guess I’ve just failed” and tossing my screwed-up paper into the waste paper bin, I strode out.

My mother was aghast!  “You have done what?” she cried and sat down to wipe away already dropping tears. But you’re in your last year. What has possessed you to do this. Your poor father would be turning in his grave” and a fresh surge of crying began.

I did feel sorry for my mother. My father’s life had never been her life really. The socialising, dinner parties, fund raisers and all the other activities that were expected of a wife of a QC Barrister were done solely from her love and loyalty. And so here she was, still thinking of what my father wanted for me.

When I was young, I sometimes caught her sitting in a garden chair with a faraway expression on her face, looking wistfully up at the deep blue sky, and I wondered if she was thinking of how different life could have been; simple, free from obligation, and all that talking to people who she really had nothing in common with - but pretending.

She once said to me, and probably regretted it, having let her loyal and stoic guard down in a moment of fragility…” Robert, I can’t wait for your father to retire. We can perhaps lead a ‘normal’ life together, get to know each other again, and enjoy the years that are left.”

I remember that I didn’t reply to her, not knowing what to say. I knew what I wanted to say but that wouldn’t have helped at all.

Sadly for my mother there was no enjoyable and relaxing retirement together. My father died having only two weeks left until his ‘gold watch’ day. The party was organised (The last big social event my mother HAD to attend) and the gift was ready, but none of it happened.

He had been playing golf when he had a massive heart attack and died right where he was – putting on the eighteenth hole. ‘He would have been annoyed if he hadn’t reached the last hole’ I thought.

Of course, my mother was initially distraught at the prospect of living without my father but as with everything in life, one gets used to things. It didn’t take her too long to enjoy sitting in her garden chair, listening to the birds and knowing there would be no more huge fundraising garden parties or chatting to people she had absolutely nothing in common with.

She at least had a couple of good friends that she had kept since her school years. They weren’t a part of the ‘inner circle’ but they had remained friends and confidantes for each other since young girls.

When they used to come around to visit, from my room I could hear her endlessly laughing with them, true laughter, from deep down, and not the false laughter that was expected when a dignitary said something they thought was funny!

I sat down next to her and held her hand, telling her that it didn’t matter. I just wanted to be content, and wouldn’t she of all people, want me to do what made me happy and not what was expected.

I know she understood, even without words. She looked into my eyes and nodded, then kissed my cheek before closing her eyes to rest.

I moved away from the area. I didn’t want the ‘old guard’ with their prying eyes to be watching my every movement, disapprovingly and then voicing that to my mother. It was no-one’s business but mine! I felt such a relief knowing that now my future was my choice.

I had never wanted to do law – it had been assumed I would. All of my father’s friends used to tell me that ‘there was always a place in their law firm for me. If I was half as good as my father, that would be good enough’. So, I just drifted into it really. Funnily enough I was quite smart, which in hind sight wasn’t a good thing. I mean if I had of struggled and looked like I wouldn’t make the grade, I would certainly have disappointed everyone, but chosen my own path.

I went to the local university in the area where I had moved to, to discuss my options. It was a huge stone building a few hundred years old with lots of history and successful graduates -   pictures and stories about them in foyers of the buildings. There were two or three international names, even an actor, which impressed me enormously!

The campus had a different feel to it. Maybe it was because I knew this was where I would be gaining my degree in what I had always wanted to do. I knew that if my father was still alive it wouldn’t be enough - “a social worker…are you joking?” He would have exploded.

When I had mentioned it to him at high school, his response had been “Never, that’s completely out of the question. You will go down the path that has always been your chosen path. It’s what my father did and what my son shall do. Think of the prestige that goes with being a good lawyer. No, no that ‘other thing’ is not for you.”

‘Well dad’ I thought looking back at the green grass and beautiful old trees at the campus I would be attending, ‘I AM going to become a social worker and I will be very happy doing just that’.

I knew I had done the right thing, chosen the job.

I still had to go to court with some of my clients but I went partly as a friend in a lot of the cases. I wasn’t paid terribly much but I was happy. That was a bonus.