Sometimes in life, it’s a time to live.  Sometimes, it’s just a time to cry.  Sometimes the raw emotion of the day just gets to a person, and that’s the latter.  Sometimes it’s being alone for the day, when your mind finally has the opportunity to calm down from the craziness of the day.  Sometimes, it’s when you just have the time to allow all of the emotions to come falling down all at one time.  I guess that just happens sometimes. It happened to me today.

I know what it is.  It’s a culmination of many things all at one time.  It’s the start of one era and the end of another.  It’s the loss of everyday contact with friends, and the uncertainty that comes with that.  It’s the uncertainness of what lies ahead, being in purgatory/limbo as we have been these past 5 weeks.  It’s the continuing salty economy, where one doesn’t know from one day to the next what lies ahead.  It causes people to be cautious, causes them to be more withdrawn and introverted, and it causes creativity to stop.  It is not a good thing.  It’s also the pressures of things that are out of your control, things that will affect you in ways you can’t possibly imagine at present.  Things that never should have been in the first place, save someone’s lack of ability to see how one tiny yet very consequential decision will affect the rest of that person’s life and the lives of those around him.  It’s the thought of having no mortgage tax deduction because you sold your house and are renting while you are trying to get ready to build another home. 

Sometimes life seems it would be much easier if I was less intelligent, creative, or even caring.  But, alas, I am not.  I do care, and I am creative.  Whether or not I’m intelligent is something I guess we will find out in approximately 5 days, 1 hour, 34 minutes, and 1 second.  Approximately, of course.

I have held off listening to any Adele songs since right after the bar exam.  Why?  They make me cry like I’m homeless and unloved.  They are wonderful, beautiful, and magical, but I will always associate them with the pure, raw emotions I had during the last couple of weeks of bar prep.  That was the most different experience of my life, and I’ve had a lot of experiences at my age.  It was, by far, not the worst thing that could ever happen.  I’ve had a few of those happen to me as well, but this was not nearly as bad.  It’s been the aftershocks that have affected me even more than the prep experience itself.  It was like I was living in a fog up to the point of the bar, and now, I’m trapped in a small closet, awaiting the results with baited breath, all the while, hoping that I don’t have to admit to family and friends (as well as unfriends) that I am a failure.  Those who truly know and love me won’t care.  Those who don’t, well, let’s just say that they have their own issues and need to get over them before giving me grief.  YOU take the bar exam and see how you do, then come back to me and tell me how easy it was.

I think that all of us are having some kinds of issues as the time draws near.  Some are very dependent on the results of this for jobs where offers are dependent on them passing the bar.  Some have $100K in student loans hovering over their heads.  Most of those folks are younger than I am.  Some have no spouse, no kids, and no mortgage.  Some are in the same boat as I am with all that extra worry.  Some are in between.  All of us, however, have one thing in common – we want to see our names on that list this Friday.