It feels like just yesterday that I was sitting in the Astoria Kaplan Test Prep Center (it was my second go around with the course because, well, that’s the Kaplan guarantee: if you do not increase your score the first time around you can take the however-many-weeks-course over again for free) oogling my LSAT teacher, weirdly grateful that I was able to take class with him for the second time around, which was no accident, of course. I was in the midst of my journey, in which the final destination (of sorts) would be law school. It was something that I thought I had wanted for most of my life, second to my desire to be a wildly successful movie actress who would date the likes of the most coveted men in Hollywood (oh, the pipe dreams). Until, now. Now I am faced with the death of what I thought was my dream (or the mere possibility of it).

I let my dreams of being an actress go a long time ago, even though deep down if the opportunity legitimately came along I would jump at in a New York minute (tacky pun) and up and leave whatever it was that I was doing. Despite the fact that I would leap at the chance to do it again, I have come to terms with the fact that it is not written in the stars and that it is not in fact my destiny. It is not something that I was meant to do. But going to law school has been present for years and has been a much more realistic dream for me. I did everything I was supposed to do to get to the dream, went through every step, did everything right and in my power and everything that I was capable of doing. I barely got by on the LSAT but it was just enough to get me into law school three years ago.

And I went. And just as quickly as I went, I left it all behind. I left law school, what I thought I had wanted, behind.

I left law school on purpose because something was telling me I wasn’t ready to go and that maybe there was something else that I was meant to do. I told my mother, upon her coming to pick me up from law school orientation that I wanted to be a writer. I wanted to try to see if I could do something with it. Writer? I thought. Where did I come up with that idea from? Why had I not thought of it sooner? It was a completely unexplored facet of myself. Yes, I had always love to write, always had a knack for it and I could hang my hat on the fact that I was both a columnist and editor of my high school newspaper The Beacon, which now seems like ages ago and was the first and most significant memory I had in reference to my enthusiasm for writing. At the time, I took my health column and the controversy that I could and did cause with it very seriously. I remember doing extensive research on how, when and why girls our age (17, oh my god, this almost 10 years ago) should go to the gynecologist even if they are not sexually active. You know, typical high school stuff.

When I graduated, writing, acting and law school got lost in the mix of my new declared major, Public Relations. I cannot remember where in the fuck my grand idea about PR came from but there it was and there it went, along with $65,000 worth of invisible money that I will be in debt-ed to most probably until I am 75 years old. And then I remembered law school. I transferred from Hofstra University to Queens College to go after my remembered dream. I went through all the required steps, made it to the Kaplan course to practice and prep for the LSAT a.k.a the most ridiculous and challenging exam of my life (and I thought nothing could beat the ridiculousness of the SATs) and I did it. I got into law school, finally.

I rejoiced. I went  to orientation. And then cried over the fact that I wasn’t ready. I said I had wanted to try writing. And then I completely lost myself for 3 years.

Which now brings us to today: I pursued my writing like I said I would, going to far as to applying to graduate school for creative writing and getting in. My desire to become the next Lena Dunham was realized. I felt validated in a way that I never had before and knew that this was going to be the right move for me. I had struggled for a year and a half to get something off the ground with my writing and slowly but surely I did but something was still nagging me. It was law school. It appeared again and it tugged at my heart, dragging me away from everything. It was trying to make me believe that this was still a possible career for me and to not let it slip away before it would be lost forever. I struggled with re-applying knowing that if this go around I did not get in then I would know once and for all that my running away was not for naught and that it was indeed a very possible career choice for me. But I got in. One. Last. Time.

I checked my email last week and there it was: My Hofstra Law acceptance (what, no snail mail big admissions packet?!) which coincidentally came a few days after my inevitable rejection from CUNY Law (where I had realistically wanted to go because you cannot beat the price of the school, a mere 1/3 the cost of Hofstra!). To say the least, I felt relieved and I felt smart again but most importantly, I couldn’t believe I had gotten into law school for the third and most probably final time. This was it, I thought. It really is now or never.

It is with a heavy heart that I chose to be a writer. With that, my law school dreams are dashed. It both a wonderful and terrifying choice because even though I have made the career choice to be a writer (finally and for real this time), I still feel like I am floundering. Perhaps it’s because not enough has happened career wise yet but it will. It is a career choice in which anything can happen; I am both in control and at a total loss for control all at the same time. It is at this very moment in my life that choices (or I am just at that twentysomething  stage in life) begin to disappear and you move farther and farther away from your past or what you thought you had wanted and become who you are supposed to be. And it’s scary as hell.

So long to my cute and very unnecessary Legally Blonde references and to the use of legal jargon in my everyday life (dammit, I’ll stop). So long to the powerful bitch that I had seen myself becoming once I was able to take on a case of my very own. There will be no arguing, no legal writing and most importantly, I will not be nose diving into a pile of over $200K debt (maybe I am inadvertently saving myself).

Today, I throw out the confusion and indecisiveness (here’s hoping), let go and say: I am a writer.