Four months of waiting is over

A friend reminded me that I have not yet told you about the Bar results.  I took the California Bar Exam at the end of July, and immediately after I tried very hard to forget all about it.  I came home from a long trip on the day results were posted, November 21. Even that one day seemed interminable as I waited, but eventually it was 6pm and time to look at the list.

So much was riding on passing the bar, making it difficult to view it with any kind of perspective.  As the day crawled past, I pulled further and further inward, seeking solitude in the last hour before results were released.

And then, there it was.  My name, on the pass list.  What a huge relief it was, and then almost immediately, the realization that now nothing stands in the way of being a lawyer except me.  This going out and getting a job thing, that's scary too.  It seems that one success just leads to a new challenge, new stomach-churning moments.

For a minute one day this week, I realized that even this is not all that big.  It too will fade, and even if I can't find a job right away, life will somehow go on.  If only I could hang on to that perspective, I would.  But it slipped from my fingers almost as quickly as it came.

This blog was meant to chronicle the story of my law school experience, and here we are at the very end of that road.  Life of course will carry on, but it's time for this blog to lay its proverbial head down and rest. Taking its place will be a new venue to discuss legal topics and far flung peripherals, if this blog is any indication.  I'll come back here to post the link for the new blog once it's up and running.  Thank you for your attention to my four years of incoherent ramblings.

So Hercules and Sisyphus went for a walk...

I decided to count the rows of tables this morning, because my computer was all set up and I had time to kill.  39 rows of 30.  That's a lot of bar takers.  Plus those in Santa Clara, Sacramento, San Diego, LA and maybe someplace else.  Statistically we can't all pass.  But it eludes me how to tell who is who.

The mood in the room has altered perceptibly today.  Part of it is that we have all gotten somewhat familiar with our assigned seatmates but mostly it's the realization that we are almost done.  The head proctor had no difficulty gaining our attention on Tuesday, but by noon today he had to ask us to quiet down.  1,100 plus of us, almost done.  Hard to sit quietly with all that going on.  Whether we have done enough to pass is an open question, but all that remains now is one 3 hour PT.

And then a drink or two and discovery of what lies beyond his herculean task.

I don't feel great about how I've done, nor do I feel I've surely failed.  I'm somewhere in I-don't-know-and-I-won't-know-for-four-months.  Well, fuck.  I knew this was coming but I like it less now that it's here.  Still, I have a rational understanding of the gift of this thing.  Having done this, I know I am capable of more.  And having to wait to learn the results is the only thing that makes my planned trip possible.  So I shall stop whining shortly.  In a little while.

I wish it done

I was asleep by 9 last night, and good thing, because I was awake this morning before 4.  It turns out that Peet's doesn't open until 5:30, but the early morning was pleasant as I waited on the plaza steps.  I drank my coffee, reviewed my outline and people watched, nodded to the music in my headphones and sometimes fretted.

I am trying to forget the last two days and focus on today-easy to say and a little harder to do.  I don't know if I've done enough to pass, and I have a feeling that the ease I thought I'd find after this is over will be pockmarked with a new worry-what if I didn't pass?  Already I can think of things I should have said, should not have said, MBE's I am sure I got wrong.  Ahhh...the joy of the experience escapes me this morning.

I can see why people seek out others who also have just taken the exam, so that they can alternately disassemble the experience piece by piece, and then reassemble it into something they can live with for four months.  On the other hand, part of me is tempted to avoid them altogether.  What use is such false assurance anyway?  Besides, I'm frightened of the abyss that is rimmed by realization that I missed something big.

I worked so hard for this, I can't imagine how I could have done it better.  Which begs the question of what to do if I don't pass this thing.  That question will have to wait, because I still have a job to do.

Time to step over the edge of today.

Day two

I spent the early morning walking around my neighborhood some more, and then sitting at Peet's, reading about permaculture and chicken evisceration, among other things.  Why?  Because for a short time it removes me utterly from my purpose in being here, to take the CA state bar exam. 

Day two awaits, slightly less daunting than day one, if only because it is not entirely new now.  It also helps my nerves a bit that today is all MBE's.  They are not easy, and a full day of them will no doubt be very tiring as each requires a new investment of energy and mental process.  But the risk is spread over 200 questions rather than a few.  Not knowing a particular answer is not quite so devastating to my mental well-being, and probably doesn't harm my chances of passing so very much.

I've heard so many stories about people vomiting or crying or running from the room in these exams.  So far, no drama that I'm aware of.  Of course there are about 1,000 people in the room, so I don't know what's going on way over there.  I feel older here than I did in law school, so many of the bar takers are in their 20's, fresh from undergrad plus three years of law school.  For once my age serves me well, as I can draw on some real life practice at managing nerves and crisis.  Still, I do feel a bit like an interloper.

I am steadfastly refusing to talk about the questions, other than to say the general topics, because I can't afford the emotional chaos that will result if I hear that someone saw an issue that I did not, or that I talked about one that wasn't really there.  I need all the confidence I can muster going into Thursday, so I'm wearing my virtual blinders and ear muffs, and moving forward.

I went for a walk yesterday after the exam, and it was lovely.  All the stress had temporarily dropped away, and I was in a city I don't know, gone walkabout as so many times before.  This morning, as the time to start draws near, my gut begins to clench, and I have to remember to breathe.  I suppose each day will be like this.

Examsoft had a problem yesterday, with bar takers all across the country unable to upload their exams.  I would have been freaked out by it, but I had uploaded my morning exams during lunch, so I knew there wasn't a problem with my account or setup.  And then I heard fairly soon after not being able to upload last evening that everyone was having the same problem.  Still, it was a load off my shoulders when it finally went about 8:30 last night.  

Time to beard the lion in its den.

the day before

The last couple of weeks has been a welcome respite from the anxiety I felt previously over the bar exam.  This morning once again my mind is free to worry because I don't have definite tasks in front of me.  I'm told that I need to rest today, and that makes sense.  A three day test is nothing if not an endurance test.  Still, my mind hasn't gotten the message and since it's not engaged in today's topic, small things start to surface.

I'm sure it would be entertaining to survey a large group of bar-takers, but for me the worries seem to center on my computer malfunctioning. I really don't want to have to handwrite the exam.  I suppose if it wasn't that, it would be something else.  Oddly, I worried less each day the exam got closer about actually knowing the law.

The plan calls for some diversion this morning, and travel to Oakland midday.  My cup of coffee calls from Peet's, and the day commences.

periodic and intermittent

After this, then what?  I've been so busy trying to scale this mountain that it's easy to push the thought of the other side away.  I can readily justify putting it off, so much is required today-for the next step, the next hours.  I'll take the bar exam next week, and then wait four months for the results- a sort of limbo.

I was talking with my friend last evening, and we happened on to the topic of life after the Bar.  When you are 21 or 25, it's perhaps acceptable to take a sabbatical from grown up life.  But I've been either Mom or wage-earner so long that the thought feels illicit, foolish and a little frightening.

Yet why?   This time in front of me is a rare gift, it will pass so quickly, and will never come again. Perhaps I'll have such time if/when I retire but that is a long way off, and my ability to go on far adventures at that point is, at best, uncertain.  I feel slightly embarrassed, as though I must explain myself, but I wish I did not feel so.

This trip I'm planning is in accord with who I am, my view of life, with my priorities.  I do not wish to play it safe and end with regret for not having tried.  If I were that person, I'd never have gone to law school in the first place.  I sometimes wish that adulthood did not also mean the end of unmitigated joy.  And yet that very characteristic is part of what makes intermittent joy so precious.

opposites or not

I had expected my anxiety to increase as the bar exam grew closer, but oddly this has not been the case.  In fact, about two weeks out I came upon what I thought was the eye of the storm.  A mixture of calm resignation and dogged onwardness.

I can't say that the anxiety doesn't continue to raise its head, because it does.  And I dream-a lot.  But some sort of undertone of either capacity or foolish belief has taken hold, and I feel it too, along with the worry.

This combination makes for an odd coupling-like most, I suppose.  At variance and yet accustomed to the other's presence so that both end up part of the other.  I am unable at times to separate the dance in my head and see who is who.

I know I will miss it when the music ends.