The Diplomas on the Wall

I have a modicum of diplomas. Not a surfeit, you know, like those doctor offices where there are diplomates galore. But I have a few. College, magna cum laude thank you, though in all these years nobody has asked or noticed. Law School. Admission for New York. Admission for California, and the Central District too, Federal.
For years, they were in rather dreadful discount frames, even when I got my first real office where I have been working, now, hard to believe 25 years. I was not sure that the job was going to take, or that I could take the job, but even though it has been a rollercoaster ride the whole time, the challenge and the passion it engendered in me was hard to ignore. Seat belt fastened, I persevered. So, about five years ago and after many office moves within the institution, I decided it was time to give those diplomas expensive wood custom frames. Also, one of the certificates needed a safer container, as it was yellowing with age.
So off to Aaron Brothers and voila they were back, rich and warm reflections of my educational past. For the first time, more than 20 years into my licensure, I hung up beautful coordinated reminders of my hard hard work when I was still new, and ready to conquer the legal world.
Like most soldiers of the law I have gone in and out of battle and my emotional armor is worn. I have come to understand that ideals are often promulgated by the very people who circumvent them or act openly and proudly as if they do not apply to themselves. In my incredibly imperfect way, I have fought this ethics gap, I guess you would call it. But I am tired watching good people getting hurt in favor of the murmurings and successes of the self-entitled. I have always thought truth will prevail. I think it will but I am afraid it may only be in the eschaton, not on this earth. And I am impatient.
As the sun was beginning to go down, my work day ending, I found myself  looking at the wall upon which still hang those once new and shiny diplomas that heralded my young days' journey into the career world.  I realized that one day soon, they will be piled up in a closet, or in a garage. i have no wall space for them at home. And I was not sad. The old circle of life. I was thinking now of what is to come, and I don't think I am going to need any diplomas to validate the balance of my journey, however short or long it turns out to be from here.