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The Bar Exam

I get an odd rush out of telling people how nervous I am about the Bar results coming in today. And it’s true, I suppose I’m somewhat antsy about them and it’ll be great to know officially. But I’m not actually worried: I do well on standardized tests. I studied for months and I felt fine when it was over. Yet here I am, refreshing the results website every two minutes, frantically dissecting with my colleagues what we can remember of the exam questions, feigning more nervousness than I have. It took me until 2:53pm today to realize why:

I didn’t get to do this the last time around.

Years ago, during a summer break from college, I worked as a lowly intern at a small newspaper. I didn’t get to do much substantive work (again, intern), but I enjoyed the office and my co-workers and the blueberry danishes they sometimes brought in. But as the summer crept along, tension and frustration churned in my stomach. I knew what was coming. Before the job started, I’d made the first appointment to get tested for Huntington’s. I respect people who make the decision to hold off on testing, to let it go until there’s a pressing reason for it. I wish my brain could work like that. But it has to know more, has to keep asking questions, has to know more than it has earned and more than it should. It was a surprise to exactly no one when I chose to get tested almost immediately after finding out about being at risk. I also knew myself well enough, however (at least I thought I did), to postpone getting the results until the day after my summer job ended in case things went poorly.

From the moment the phlebotomist walked away with my sample, the summer turned slow and agonizing. For all my confidence in the psychiatrist’s office about my support network, I didn’t trust myself enough to talk to any of them. I didn’t want to burden my family about it, so I tried not to let out more than small snippets of my anxiety to them. My friends were on the receiving end of slightly larger bits of crazy, but there was only so much stressing I could do over e-mail before I knew that their eyes might be glossing over or they might just skip reading my epic, five-page and completely self-absorbed email entirely. (How dare they, I know.) My boyfriend, a truly wonderful person who played a key role in this support network, wasn’t my boyfriend anymore. I’d picked fights and pushed him away ever since learning about HD, and even when I realized I wasn’t being fair to him, that I was projecting my fears about what was happening and what might happen onto him and our relationship, I couldn’t stop myself from deciding I was finished.

That left my co-workers, the people I spent most of my waking hours with. Of course I couldn’t talk to them. Those were the people from whom I’d be seeking recommendations, the people with whom I wanted to work in the future, and to let them know that my mind wasn’t entirely on work so much as it was on the degenerative illness I might have that would destroy my brain function? Not a great idea. Looking back on it, I was probably underestimating their empathy (and overestimating the impact that co-workers during one college internship would have on the rest of my career), but not talking about it at all to them did help me maintain a professional facade in the workplace when I felt nothing but nerves inside.

The waiting seemed endless, of course, until it ended. My best friend sat next to me holding a box of tissues and the genetic counselor looked so somber and the neurologist was direct when he told me I fell on the wrong side of 50/50. For a moment, I wanted to be back in the waiting, but then I felt the knot in my stomach dissolving and was grateful that, no matter what was in store, at least I’d made it through this part.

The pass rate for the Bar exam I took is a little over 50%, unfortunately and eerily symbolic of that summer a few years back. But this time I’m waiting on results that I put a great deal of effort into, gave myself the best possible chance on, and frankly, did well at. (If I failed, I take this all back.) So I’m not nervous today, not by how I’ve started defining “nerves” since I took my HD test. But everyone else seems to be, and I’m happy to make a show of it for my co-workers, for my friends, and for my parents. My parents have called and e-mailed often, wanting to talk about what the waiting is like and how excited and nervous they are. My mother even told me about a nightmare she had about waiting for Bar results. (I wouldn’t be surprised if, a few years ago, there were lots of nightmares about the waiting that she didn’t and never will tell me about.)

And when I get my results back, I will post them on Facebook, because there’s no one in the world I have to hide it from.

 

The author who submitted this story to HOPES wishes to remain anonymous.