I am good at compartmentalizing. I mean, really good. I managed to shelve worrying for three solid months, concentrating on meetings and networking and interning.
Until yesterday evening at approximately 6:30, when I left the MARTA station to drive home after truly grueling at the county public defenders. (I got a lecture from one of our clients on that particular afternoon about how he pays his taxes and he’s indigent and he shouldn’t have to pay this fee. . .”don’t shoot the messenger” has no impact whatsoever on these guys, and I don’t think it would have helped his confidence if I informed him that I’m actually working for free.) At any rate, as I shook off the mental detritus of the day, slow realization took its place. Bar results tomorrow.
The rest of the evening went like this:
Bar results, upon receipt, there will be no good reason not to have a job (aside from the craptacular market, I mean.)
Bar results, which I will then have tell a lot of people about.
Bar results, which I will have to tell a lot of people about if I pass and then tactfully tell them to hire me.
Bar results, which I will have to tell a lot of people about if I don’t pass and then graciously accept their sympathy without screaming and breaking things.
One lawyer I spoke with shrugged and said, “so what? you don’t pass, you take it again.”
What? What what what? But isn’t this what really tells me whether or not I should be a lawyer? Whether this totally new direction I diverted my life into for four exhausting years was a big, fat, expensive mistake? What will I actually do if I don’t pass? Finally move out, change my name and join the circus?
. . .that seems like a good option. . .
It’s comforting to have a plan B.
I got home at 11:45 today. Results were posted at noon. I stubbornly refused to even open my computer until then, at which point a chat window from a classmate pulsed cheerfully at me: “Congratulations!”
So that was anticlimactic. But good.
I passed the bar.