I'm meant to be studying right now. In fact, that's all I've been meant to be doing for several weeks now. I've been going to college two evenings a week, given up work, spent plenty of time at my desk, yet, I know that I've done nothing. I'm looking at third time unlucky coming up.
You see, I'm doing the FE1 exams. These exams, if I ever pass them, will allow me to start training to be a solicitor and I'll be able to eventually qualify and get that dream job. Therein lies the problem though: If I ever pass them. I graduated from college with my Law and History degree in 2014, delighted with myself that I finally did it after a really tough time getting there. I thought that I'd dealt with the worst. That turned out to be the easy bit. Since then I've attempted the exams twice and passed one out of four exams each time. Great, you'd say, except for the fact that these exams require that you pass at least three exams in your first sitting or you have to sit them all again. So I'm still at zero and have now made the extremely stupid decision to sit six exams this time based on logic that I'm not sure I understand anymore.
I just want to reach the potential that other people seem to believe that I have. Since I was young I've been told that I'm smart and I'll do great, blah, blah, blah, yet, here I am at 25 years old, living the classic "life of a failure": living at home on social welfare. I'm watching my friends and family do the great things and I am so jealous. They've got impressive jobs, or are working on PhDs, or are getting to travel the world - I know someone who's managing to do all 3. This isn't where I though I'd be at 25: I imagined living in the city with my boyfriend, working in a law firm and having a great social life. I want a life that I can be proud of, that I could say that I earned.
I know that I have my excuses, that I've been through stuff, but I don't think that that's good enough. I am perfectly capable, I just appear to have given up those capabilities and put myself in this miserable situation instead. It's not that I want to give up, my mind and body just seem to have made that decision for me.
So now, in two weeks time I attempt to sit these exams again and six weeks after those I'll get the results. In the meantime I guess I better try come up with a new career aim.
