Letter 5: to my dreams

Dear Dreams:

Why did you have to choose me to be so ambitious? Why did you have to make me want kids? Why did you have to make me competitive? At two, I knew the alphabet, the days of the week, the months of the year. I could count to 100, skip count by 2s (evens and odds and I knew the difference), by 4s, by 5s, and by 10s. Bilingual me would translate a word from language to another. It’s all on video. Admittedly, I don’t know how normal this is. I have a two year old niece and thats my only comparison. Even the gifted program was too easy for me. I desperately wanted to skip a grade, but my parents were afraid of what would happen if I skipped. College was a joke. People get mad when I say that, but I’m serious. I could not believe how easy it was to pass a class in college. Triple major, minimum 18 credits a semester, an internship and a job, and my transcripts are riddled with A+s. I used to seek the classes that gave out out +/- grades because an A wasn’t enough.

Dreams, you scare me. And yet I slowly accomplish you. So what are you? What are my dreams? I dreamed of going to law school. Check. Of getting married. Check. Now I dream of having kids (I’ve always wanted three but I want two girls and my husband wants two boys so we might settle on four if I ever get the chance), but at the same time, I dream of changing the world. It’s daunting thinking about my dreams. It hasn’t even been 6 months I’ve graduated but I miss the courtroom. And when I look back at my time as a student attorney, with actual clients, I remember the excitement, the fear, the amount of trust I’m given, the enormous burden I carry.

I dream to be a criminal defense attorney. People don’t like hearing that. Even my own parents. People told me I’d change my mind in law school–that everyone does. I didn’t. So much of our current justice system follows a retributive theory of punishment. I believe in a rehabilitative one. Our justice system is a vicious cycle and its so sad to see how many lives it’s ruining. I can’t sit by. When I tell people I plan on practice criminal defense they always ask me “so you wanna defend guilty people.” My answer is simple: “we’re lucky to live in a country where every individual has the presumption of innocence. That means all of the people I’m defending, will in fact, be innocent (until proven guilty beyond any reasonable doubt).

I’m going to get to change lives. I’m going to have the opportunity to change the world. It’s so close. I just have this massive test in the way.

When I started dating my husband, I instantly knew he was the one. I knew it but I never thought I’d get to marry him. I thought my dreams were too big, I thought I’d have to choose. I’m so lucky to get to have the opportunities  to accomplish everything I could ever dreamed of. And I can’t wait to start working.

P.S. If any attorneys are reading this in my state, I need help getting a job. All of my contacts are in Colorado, and this is another hurdle I’ll need to climb.