Thoughts on Transition

My first official day of law school is over.  I only had 2 classes, which were filled with lots of first day stuff.  I was the first to get called on in my Legal Writing class.  Luckily the answer I made up seemed close enough to being right that the professor let me off the hook relatively quickly.  After class I came home, tried to do some reading, which boggled my mind...and I took a nap, with my cats, among the various books strewn about the bed.  Books, and cats, and naps.  Happens to be the subtitle of this blog.  Which I initially started as a way to keep friends and family back home informed on the goings on in my life.  But it seems to have evolved, as I think most blogs and lives do, and probably should.

So the cats are the same.  Still Brody and Opal.  Still troublesome.  Still my favorite animals on the planet, and one big reason why I haven't gone insane yet.

Clearly the napping is still happening.  I love naps. I can't help it.  So decadent and fantastic.  Plus some one had some first day of school jitters and didn't get much sleep last night.

And that leaves the books.  Sure, I'll be reading...a lot and even if I have officially deemed bus time, pleasure-reading time, I still feel like I am losing my right arm.

Christy asked me last night if I was nervous, and I said I was, but upon reflection, not because of the first day, but more because today starts a completely new life for me.  No more work.  How strange to not be working.  I've only been working a little over 10 years now, still it feels like forever.  I worked through school, I worked in the summers, I've worked 2 jobs at a time more than I ever want to do again.  But more than getting over not working, I have to get over that I won't be working with books.  I have been employed or volunteering in libraries or bookstores since I was 16...almost half my life.  My AmeriCorps service, and the big reason I'm going back to school, was with a literacy foundation.  I love books, I love readers, I love bookstores.  And I think this is what is weighing me down as I completely change direction.  How do you remain yourself, when something you identify with so completely, is suddenly stripped away?  Even with the cats and the naps...without the books, am I still the same me?