I haven't posted anything in so long because I'm just not sure what to talk about. I'm somewhat paralyzed by my fear of discovery. I want to talk about my job, but I fear someone figuring out that this is my blog, which would be extremely easy if anyone I know came across it. So I can't, even though work is consuming me right now. I want to talk about my husband, but I can't, because he also might read this. I don't think he would, but he knows it exists, he's seen it, he knows how to find it.
And everything I want to say is so whiny and self-pitying that I just don't want to write it because I don't want that to be who I am. I have so many unbelievably great things in my life, so it would be awfully self-indulgent to whine all the time about the ways in which my life is not perfect. It is not as simple as that, of course, because there really are things in my life that are legitimately troubling, but those are the things I can't really write about comfortably, so here I am. And even those legitimately troubling things seem awfully trivial compared to the truly tragic things happening all around me. Never mind the Virginia Tech massacre. That is too big to even get my head around.
I'm writing tonight because I'm just so overwhelmed by something that has happened to someone I have never met, never even talked to, but feel that I "know."
A woman I "know" from my days posting on www.inciid (an infertility site) has breast cancer. She was diagnosed more than a year ago, and had surgery and chemo, which drove it away, but it is back. And apparently it is back in a way that is the worst way possible, at least from her perspective today, which is the day she found out the news. The only treatment is chemo, and more chemo, until she dies. I think she was hoping for the type of cancer that Elizabeth Edwards has, which is hormone-driven, and can be kept at bay, at least for a while, with drugs. I read just today that Elizabeth Edwards is currently taking a pill that should keep the cancer under control for a while. A simple little pill.
This woman, Natalie, has a journal on a site called caringbridge.com. Her journal is under the name nataliet. She is devastated by the news she got today. How could she not be? She has three children, a five-year old, like I have, and three-year old twins, like I have. We were pregnant with all our kids at the same time. We both suffered through infertility. I can't stop thinking about how I would feel if I got news like she just got. How I would ever be able to cope, to go about my daily business, to parent my children? She is so devastated for her children, and it makes me want to cry just thinking about it. How can the world be so cruel? I haven't posted in her guest book in a while, because there is a lot of talk of God and praying, and I'm not a believer and don't pray, and am not sure how to offer comfort to this woman. What is there to say?
The mental anguish of getting news like that would be too much for me to bear, I think. I think I would feel that I was losing my mind. How do you face your children? How do you read them bedtime stories, and give them baths, and help them learn to read and count, when you know what hell lies ahead, for you and for them? I literally feel sick just thinking about it.
And it makes me scared. I have to schedule a mammogram and a pap smear. I have been very remiss about my health. I was just so doctored out after all the infertility treatments, that I have avoided doctors like the plague, but it has been way too long. And I'm so fat I'm embarrassed, and ashamed, and don't want to face a doctor's disgusted disapproval.
So my problems seem so trivial by comparison, yet they are still there.
The bar exam is like this black cloud looming over my life. I haven't been obsessing about it. I even have managed to put it mostly out of my mind. But it is always there, hovering in the background. The date when the results will be published looms ever closer, and it is not so much in the background any more. I'm almost positive I failed. That would not be a big deal to me if I could just take time off to study again. I know I would pass the next time. But my world is ruled by the billable hour, and I just don't know how I can take the time off again this year to study. And I have a trial this summer, right when the next exam is given, and I don't want to give up my trial, but I'm not sure I'll be permitted to wait until February to take it again. I've been pretty quiet about it. Unlike the first time I took the bar, I don't talk about it, I don't tell people I'm sure I failed. I just say "we'll see" when asked. But I really don't know what I'll have to do if I am right, and my name is not on the list of successful candidates. Who do I tell? What will happen?
In the long run, it shouldn't matter. I read today about one of the professors who was killed at Va. Tech. A student said that she once said to him "I think I failed your exam today." He said "so what, are you going to think about one exam you failed 30 years from now?" I thought that was so wonderful. And true. Will the bar exam matter a year from now, when one way or another, I will have passed? I'm just having so much trouble getting through this part.
I'm so exhausted. I've been working so hard on a project that is not billable, and not being recognized by anyone here very much. And the person I did it for is not that happy with it. Not because it is "bad," but because it is not exactly what he wanted. But he is happy for us to put it off, to include it in next year's book, but instead I'm killing myself trying to make revisions to make the deadline for this year's book. Not because I actually care personally -- I actually don't give a shit -- but because I'm trying to avoid disappointing someone else. And it all feels like such an incredible waste of my time, of my life. I look at Natalie, whose days are numbered, and imagine how I would feel if I found out my days were numbered, and had to look back on these last few weeks, and how I spent them. Is any of this worth the lost sleep, the lost sunshine, the lost time with my beautiful, precious children?
But hey, at least Sanjaya got voted off American Idol last week!
Mama:
Of all the things to worry about, the Bar Exam always ranks high on the list. Why? I, like most, took it multiple times. How many doesn't matter, unless you're the guest in a Depo and the examining attorney is an asshole.
I tell examinees that the only way the real Bar pass rate is less than 100% is when they give and walk away.
Whether this time, or next, or next... Keep trying until you pass. The rewards of being an attorney (not money) are enough to fade the memories of the tests not passed.
Good luck,
Jonathan Kramer, Esq.
PassTheBarExam.com
Posted by: Jonathan Kramer, Esq. | April 25, 2007 at 07:22 AM
Hey you,
I know you are feeling stressed and freaking out a bit but try not to worry. Yes, some women get cancer, and some women are cured, but the only thing that you can do, is go to a Dr. to find out. Then stop worrying!
And really, notwithstanding your pp up there, you can talk about your husband or your job. They won't figure it out, really. Just misspell a few keywords!
Posted by: Aurelia | April 26, 2007 at 11:00 AM