the ending of this chapter

since most of you have chosen to endure my endless complaints about law school, and have shown a tremendous amount of support through my days of misdirection and self-defeat, i feel it's only fair and right to let you know that the bar results are in.

i didn't pass.

and before you feel sad for me, or worry, you should know that i'm okay.  really.  i'm okay.  in fact, friday was overall a really great day for me.  my sister flew into town, i got off of work early, i went to see new moon, then went up to tahoe for the weekend.  it wasn't until about halfway between home and tahoe (at about 9:30pm) that i remembered the results were released.  i googled it on my crackberry, and lo and behold, i didn't pass.

it hasn't been, and sometimes still isn't, easy to articulate to people the reasons why not passing didn't wreck me last week.  my only explanation is that i had already dealt with it all.  personally, i think i was in a good place with whatever i was going to see when i clicked onto that pass list. 

shortly after the results went public, M., one of my closest law school friends, sent me an incredibly sweet email.  my response to her, copied below, may flesh out my reaction a bit more.

...Yes, it was incredibly difficult for me to come to terms with the fact that this path I chose was perhaps the wrong one for me, or at least it wasn't the right one, and admitting that to you all and to my family was worse.  But the only reason I could do it, and the only reason I got through it and am on my way to finding out what it is I really want to do is because I knew I'd get support.  I knew that you, B. and L. (not to mention N. and my family) would understand and support me, even when it was hard for me to understand and support myself.

Honestly, I'm actually surprised at my reaction to the Bar results.  I really did think I'd take it a lot harder than I did.  And don't get me wrong, I was disappointed.  But I was disappointed in the "I bet it would have been cool to be able to say I passed the California Bar Exam" way.  In the end though, I'd already come to terms with not passing, and with the fact that I essentially chose not to pass, hard as that was.  And, if I'm honest with myself, I think the largest part of the disappointment at not passing comes from my bruised ego; I didn't want to have you all know that I didn't pass (because maybe you'd think I wasn't as smart?).

But once I got past all of that, I realized that, for me, not passing is okay.

Because I still have the best friends ever.  Like you.  And you guys understand.

so this chapter of my life seems to be, for now at least, officially over.  i can't tell you how much i'm looking forward to the next one, whatever it may be.