Bar

I took the Uniform Bar Exam on July 26 and 27.

I’m still waiting on my results.

And I’m still having nightmares about it.

That’s not hyperbole—I had another one last night.

In fact, started having nightmares about the bar exam before I sat for it.

In the first one, about four days before the exam, I dreamed that I incorrectly formatted a written segment of the morning’s session, meaning that the portion I formatted incorrectly wouldn’t be graded, meaning that something like 15% of my bar score would be counted as a “zero.”

The worst part of that particular nightmare was that in the dream, I realized my mistake during the afternoon session, which totally derailed me mentally.

I remember waking up, palms sweaty and chest heavy with anxiety, only to realize that the test was still a few days off. Though I was able to take a deep breath, I can’t say that the unease subsided at all.

Then came the exam itself. One big room with something like four hundred other examinees nervously sitting, waiting for the proctor to say “begin,” while he wades through a set of rules that cause a measure of fright all their own.

Since July 27, I’ve had at least five other dreams about the exam, all of them involving that feeling of being up against the clock, being tasked with impossible tasks, feeling like I’ve given everything I have, and it still may not be good enough.

And that’s at the heart of the matter, isn’t it?

Self-doubt.

Insecurity.

It’s the same thing I struggle with as an artist—my books won’t sell because they’re not good enough. No one will read what I say because I don’t say anything worth saying. I won’t pass the exam because I’m not smart enough.

And I don’t have the answer at the moment.

I honestly feel like I did well enough to pass. I certainly know how much work I put in over the summer (not to mention the last three years), but there’s always that nagging voice that says: you could have done more. And I know that’s technically true.

But also, I’m not a machine. I’m human. And machines don’t pass the bar exam. Humans do.

So at the moment, sure, there’s an undercurrent of anxiety that I feel day in and day out, and I don’t think that will change until I get my results.

However, I’m also taking comfort in the reality that I’m not perfect, but no one else is, either.

I did my best, my absolute best, and we’ll find out if that was good enough on October 10.

Thanks for reading.

All the best,

-Brandon