Life As It Is

I did not plan to start a journal today. I’ve always thought journaling was something people did when they had too many feelings and nowhere to put them. I usually just carried mine quietly between lectures, inside my tote bag, tucked into the margins of my case notes. But today feels like a beginning. My name is Elle John. I’m a 500-level law student. Final year. The title sounds heavy. Important. Like I should have everything figured out by now. I don’t. Five years of reading cases. Five years of highlighting textbooks until the pages look bruised. Five years of saying, “I’m fine,” whenever anyone asks how law is going. It is not always fine. Maybe that’s why I bought this journal. It’s dark brown with soft edges and thin cream pages. I saw it at a roadside bookshop three days ago while heading home from campus clearance. I wasn’t looking for it, but when I held it, it felt steady. Like something that could hold my thoughts without spilling. Today is my first night in my apartment. My apartment. Even writing that makes me pause. After years of sharing spaces hostel rooms that were too small for two people, roommates with different habits, different moods, different definitions of cleanliness I finally have my own place. No bunk bed. No whispered midnight phone calls. No debates about whose turn it is to clean. No waking up to someone else’s alarm. Just quiet. The apartment is small one main room, a kitchenette that barely fits two pots at once, and a bathroom that takes patience before the shower runs properly. The paint is slightly chipped near the window. The tiles don’t completely match. But it is mine. I spent most of today arranging my books. Constitutional Law beside Equity. Criminal Law stacked carefully under Jurisprudence. Looking at them lined up against the wall made everything feel real five years of effort sitting in physical form. I cooked noodles tonight. Simple. Too much pepper, as usual. I ate sitting on the floor because I haven’t bought chairs yet. The room echoed slightly when I moved. For the first time in a long time, silence didn’t feel awkward. It felt peaceful. Being in 500 level is strange. People assume you’re confident. That you’ve mastered discipline. That you understand the law completely by now. But I still panic before presentations. I still reread cases five times before I understand them properly. I still compare myself to classmates who seem sharper, faster, more certain. I think I started writing because I don’t want this year to disappear unnoticed. Everyone talks about the end graduation, law school, “the next step.” No one talks about the middle. The ordinary Tuesdays. The evenings when you’re tired but proud. The days you doubt yourself but show up anyway. This apartment feels like proof that I’m growing up. I have my own key now. I locked my own door tonight. That feels bigger than it should. If this journal survives the year, maybe it will remind me that I was here in this small room, in this final year, trying my best. Tonight, I’m not thinking about the future. I’m just sitting on a tiled floor, listening to distant generator sounds, realizing that independence is quieter than I imagined. And maybe that’s okay.