I remember last April 5, when the results of the February bar exam came out, I looked at the website where they are posted to see if my friends had passed.  Sometime during that week, or maybe that morning, the website has a banner they put up on the top corner that says that the bar exam results will be available at 4pm.  On that site. 

So, of course, this weekend and even today, I’ve checked to see if the banner is up yet.  It’s not.  I think that’s a good thing, but then again, it just makes me nervous knowing that it will be up there sometime this week.  This is bothersome.  Why?  Because that determines my fate to a certain degree.  And, then the rest of life carries on.

I think tonight of a girl who I once knew.  She is no longer with us – a victim of a car accident many years ago.  I was her friend when her husband was clerking, going through the whole law school experience.  Even then, I wanted to go to law school.  Even then.  They had dated for five years, and they’d been married about the same amount of time.  They didn’t have any children.  She and I worked together, and she and I had taken different jobs shortly after that time.  Mine took me to a different city.  I still have the book, Memoirs of a Geisha, that she gave me when I left, with her inscription.  It is one of my most-prized possessions.  It is one of the only things I have left to remind me of her.  But, I will never forget her.  She and her husband had moved into their new home, after renting for years, 3 weeks prior to her accident.  She was killed instantly. 

My dreams are her dreams, to a certain degree.  Sometimes, when I’m having a crappy day, or I am not happy, I think back to her.  Her smile, her funny laugh, and her way of looking at life like there were no boundaries.  She once told me of a story from when she was working on a cruise ship.  Somehow this 4’11” girl had found herself in the very bottom of the ship, near the bilge.  She was totally creeped out, but I can guarantee you that she didn’t let that make her want to get off the boat.  She kept on going.  She always did.  No matter what.

Her spirit lives on in those who knew her, and there are many of us.  I do so many things I don’t want to do, and I think how she would have given anything to have to do those things.  I know, she would be so very, very proud of me.  I know that.  I know that she would give anything to be sitting by her phone, waiting on my text at 4:15pm on Friday, regardless of the results.  She would be there to cheer me on, or cry with me.  Either way, she would be so proud.

I’m scared to death of the results.  I really am.  I’m not sure how I will react either way.  I know that I took this step, in part, because of her, and I will be as brave as she was facing the bilge.  I can do this.  I will do this, if even for her. 

And, no, I’m not sharing the website.  If you want to find it, look it up.  I don’t want to know from anyone else but the official source, so please don’t call or text me.  My phone will be off, anyway.  This is personal.  This is private to me, this one moment I have waited for for almost 20 years.  I will be in my closet, with my laptop, a good glass of red wine, and my dog.  I’ll let you know what happens when I come out and feel like making calls or texting.  Please give me this moment.