All we women, we future ex-wives

There are more women than men in law school right now, and mine is no exception. Some of my classes are seas of women; long-haired, short-haired, stout, curvy, smart, witty, humorless, political, apathetic...basically, a swathe of female humanity from the middle-class cut-throat ambitious to the upper-class post-undergrad founderers...

Future ex-wives.

We female law students, already, most of us, in our mid twenties; likely to graduate in our mid-to-late twenties; we women who have decided to forego our prime dating years, our prime-pop-culture consuming years; we women who, likely, lose most of our patience and half our social skills somewhere between the library and the court clerk's office...

The men that we will someday marry are out there, in other law schools; business schools, graduate programs, jobs- doing, substantially, the same things we are. Learning and unlearning the things that we are learning. And we'll meet them, and find ourselves in them, and develop respect and lovely even relationships...

until we get older. And they get more successful. And we're still equals; but they're offered something better. Something younger. Something softer. Something like we were before law school. Something with the sense of humor that we don't have. Something- someone- who is in middle school right now, or elementary, or a stroller.

I don't blame my future ex-husband for his future second wife. I'm so old already. I'm so tired. I'm brittle, and impatient. My eyebrows go together in the center, all the time. I am intimately aware of what soy does to my digestion. I'm cautious about new food and late nights. I can't afford a single misstep; a morning off can wipe out an entire term's work. I already need a break from me.

But what I hate is that I'm not going to get this young, easy, break-of-a-man- this lithe reward for hard work and a tax bracket greater than 35%...who is fascinated with me. Who wants to listen, and make my life easier. Someone who will love me without knowing me as...personally...and evenly, as I'd be known as a contemporary. Someone who wants to take dance classes and has an almost imperceptible refractory period.

Because, dammit, women don't get 23 year old refresh-men. Too bad.