I hated being a lawyer, and I was never very skilled at it, but that thought of someone saying to me, “I thought you were supposed to be a lawyer” in response to legal questions I answered partially or not at all truly terrified me. It is why I always tried to position myself as an outsider: A person who wanted to be in graduate school for creative writing during law school; a person who was only running long distances to get better at rowing; someone writing book reviews just to help me remember what I’ve read. No, I was just too scared to admit that I was running to run, or writing to be read. That fear, knowing it exists in other people?

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