It's still law...

Saturday: This is an experiment. Jeff sat down and said, “There’s one more thing we have to talk about. Law school.”

”Ok,” I said. “Go for it.”

”Oh,” he replied, with a note of surprise. “I thought there was going to be a big argument. Ok, so let’s do it.”

”Well, it’s not ‘us,’” I cautioned. “I’m not doing it.”

He nodded. “I know.”

Now I’m wondering if there will be more questions for me to answer, or whether the subject has been satisfied now that I’m officially not standing in the way.

Sunday: This morning Jeff asked if we could “stroll over to the law school.”

”Which law school?” I asked. “Maryland,” he said, meaning University of Maryland which is in Baltimore.

"It’s not exactly strolling distance,” I said. “Maybe you need to do a little research into this.” (I said this fully realizing that Jeff doesn't have the cognitive wherewithal to research the dog's eye color.) So I’m not sure when it will come up again and what to say that is neither discouraging nor pointlessly encouraging. Possibly, if we obtain written information, with forms and whatnot, he can spend time riffling through them for months to come. It’s a thought.

Monday: Substitute new thought. In my internet delvings into how best to deflect or manage this recurring theme, I realized the obvious: There is no road to law school on which you will not encounter the gatekeeper called LSAT. This is easy for Jeff to understand. That is, it is easy for him to understand that the LSAT is a requirement. Understanding the LSAT prep book I will buy for him today at Barnes & Noble, when we make our midday outing, is probably not going to be so easy. Still, it seems a next step is necessary since this notion has lodged itself fiercely in his cranium in a way that things like the route to the bathroom cannot.

It is almost a certainty that whatever questions you might have about my “strategy”(?) in this matter are ones I’ve already asked myself. Should I not nip this in the bud? How? I have already attempted to make the point (as a follow up to “go for it,”) that people who go to law school must be able to accomplish this without their spouse’s involvement. He says “of course,” then, when we’re in the car on the way to lunch and I’m enumerating the errands I have planned, he says “and then, law school.” As if that’s one of my errands or something I’m supposed to do. So today, I bought him The Princeton Review LSAT Prep Guide. Was this $24.37 paid toward something I should have already said “no” to, or have I bought myself a functional distraction?

Just “no” will not work. That means I am the roadblock. The truth (i.e. “your brain has been so damaged that you cannot possibly comprehend law, let alone write a coherent note, let alone find a classroom,”) is depressing. I don’t want to depress. This has to play in a way that I am not the enemy, nor am I the wielder of the harshest truths.

I have some hope that the LSAT book is a good idea. I can hand it to him whenever the subject comes up. He will not be able to read a page of it. But I don’t think that even his damaged brain can construe that as my fault.