anniversaries
by sam on 07/28/2009I was reminded this morning that the bar exam starts today. Which got me thinking about milestones, because I took that same bar exam during one of the most hellacious summers of my life.
Ten years and 2 months ago (May 2009), I graduated from law school. Which, I’ll admit, was pretty awesome.
Ten years ago exactly, I sat for the bar. I remember thinking many, many times that, if I didn’t pass on the first go-round, I would have to find another career because there was no way in hell that I was going through that again.
In between those two events, or, more precisely, ten years and 1 month ago, my mother passed away after a long bout (7 years) with cancer. It wasn’t unexpected. She had been actively sick for at least a year, managed to make it to my graduation weighing 90 pounds and needing a wheelchair, and had gone into the hospital for the final time a week later. But the day I found out, it was certainly a shock. I was studying for the bar in Philadelphia, because I actually had a place to live there (my folks had sold the house I grew up in a few years earlier), but was planning on driving up that weekend to NYC to visit. I was sitting in Rittenhouse Square when my dad called me on my cellphone to tell me the news. I don’t remember that much, except that I know I screamed an ungodly scream in the middle of a giant public space, started crying uncontrollably, and ran home to pack. Of course, the reason I wasn’t home in the first place was that my landlords were trying to sell our house for when after our lease was up, so there was an open house going on. Needless to say it ended pretty quickly when I showed up. I’m pretty sure the real estate agent tried to hug me.
My roommates, who were the best, drove me and my car (in a little caravan) up to my parents apartment while I had a minor breakdown. The funeral was the next day, and a significant portion of my law school class, with only a few hours notice, skipped bar review and showed up in westchester. I realized later that my roommates must have called people and it spiraled, because I wasn’t really in a state to do much.
I stayed in rockland for shiva (obviously), and I skipped almost a week of bar review classes. I was theoretically going to borrow the tapes when i got back, but I just never got around to it. People were shocked that I was still going to take the bar, given what happened, but my standard response was that my mother would come back just to kill me if I didn’t. Which I’m pretty sure I believed at the time. Plus, having something (even as miserable as bar exam studying) to focus on did help. But I will say that I’m glad there wasn’t more torts on the exam, because I missed that entire section of bar review.
Oh, and did I mention that in the middle of this, I had to find an apartment in manhattan because my lease was going to be up 3 days after the bar? that was an extra special bonus of suck. I can’t believe I managed to actually find something halfway decent (and I ended up living there for 6 years, until I bought my current place).
My roommates, who took care of me through all of it, are still my friends. I sometimes wish I could thank them every day for having to navigate my craziness during that period. But they saw me through it. My best friend from high school, who I was going to crash with for the bar, packed a bag and went to her parents so that I could sleep in her bed undisturbed instead of on the couch. As weird as it was, it was exactly what I needed and she knew that.
The bar exam itself was its own special circle of hell. Not only is it one of the hardest exams you’ll ever take in your life, in NYC they put you all, all 5000 of you, into a giant cavernous space filled with tables as far as the eye can see at the Jacob Javits Center. It’s like an exercise in pressure-cookerization. Add to that the fact that there was no where to get anything to eat in the surrounding area (at least in 1999), and it’s like they want to see how many people will run screaming or pass out before it’s over.
I survived, and I passed, and I started a career (with a few bumps) that I loved.
That was all ten years ago this summer. Now I’m attempting to navigate through another change in my life, looking for a new job that I might love as much as the last one. I wish my mom was still around to give me the kick in the ass I sometimes need.