The Day After

Bar examinees all look forward to The Day After. In the Philippines, bar exams are held on four Sundays of September. It is a culmination of four years of law school and six months of intensive review. The Day After is Freedom Day. You won't know until six months after whether you passed or not. Chances are, you have to look for a job in a few weeks' time. But on that day, you are free to party, sleep, drink and be merry.

In my experience, though, the day after the bar was disorienting. Having been used to waking up to feelings of panic and anxiety, worrying about thick chapters to read and long provisions to memorize, computing the time left to study a particular subject, and such other headaches, I had to tell myself that it was okay to relax. My mind so used to inertia in motion had to take some time before going into inertia at rest.

Such was my feeling last Monday. I was free, right? I could do what my heart was yearning to do because I had talked it out with the most important people in my life. But just like waiting for examiners to check my bar blue books, I had to wait for things to move, and they were way outside of my control, before I could act on the product of my discernment. So, discernment continues. The waiting is meant to purify my heart.

The heart is devious above all else. My heart is particularly trained to zero in on worry. Rather than rejoice on a victory, it switches to search mode and looks for the next concern to worry about, and then latches on to it. Worry is familiar territory for me. There is a lot of unlearning to do before I could fully relax.

The practical things I have to do now are bogging me down. I had not even savored my freedom one minute and then my mind became immediately busy worrying about my finances.

I hope to re-program my heart into finding light and bubbly moments to rejoice about. I cannot add a moment to my life by giving in to all this worry!

I know the facts and it is my faith that fuels these facts. My train can move forward. The feelings will just have to follow. I just hope they won't take long, so I can experience joy amidst all these blessings.

I took the exam and gave my best to it. My life may depend on the result but just like the bar, it's all in God's hands. If He made me a lawyer, He could make me into anything. Anything I want to be.