Several weeks ago, I advertised my used Testmasters LSAT books on Craigslist under the “free” section. A woman answered my post. I met her on the street at night after she got off from work. She said she wanted to start in a new direction in her career and was thankful that I didn’t simply throw the expensive books in the garbage. We chatted for a few minutes, each revealing bits of our personal histories and current life situations, never truly registering each other’s names. Soon, she was off. A pseudo-intimate encounter with a stranger, one who is never to be seen again.

But for my inability to listen to my heart when it came to law school, I would have never saved my used LSAT books so pointlessly for two years in my mother’s garage. Part of me truly hopes the woman from Craigslist is benefiting from the books now. But a bigger part of me is relieved that I dodged the law school bullet.

Whenever I speak to lawyers these days, they lean in to me conspiratorially, telling me, “Honestly, don’t do it. Don’t go to law school.”

It seems that no one can stop reeling from David Segal’s New York Times articles on the reasons to stay away from law school. And now, there is news that law school graduates across the country are suing their alma maters over deceptive post-grad employment data advertised by the schools.

What is it about everyone thinking at some point that they might go to law school? Is it the comfort of being on some sort of conveyor belt? Or is everyone really that riveted by legal questions?

As I unpack my life in America, LSAT books aren’t the only things I find in the semi-forgotten boxes. Work shoes, college books I couldn’t let go of, an Ikea lamp I dismantled for the 14th time so it could lay down flat for another move. And even when I find things I had at one point so carefully saved, I keep editing things out. Now, my new room in Brooklyn doesn’t feel at all like my old room in another part of Brooklyn, though it has many of the same basic belongings. More important, my new writing/media self-summary doesn’t sound at all like my old law school self-summary.

Long ago I spent my subway rides in crowded cars, standing up against a pole, practicing logic puzzles with a pencil, a test date in mind. My head was always hunched over, and I didn’t even own an iPhone then. Now my subway rides are for people-watching and contemplating Dr. Zizmor’s abrasive skin care advertisements. In short, subway rides are for daydreaming.