525,600 minutes

Hi guys,

So, as you may have noticed, it has been over a year since I have last posted. I started and stopped writing at least a dozen times. Upon logging in today I saw five different notifications from Uncle Google telling me about EU regulations that have become established in the year since I last posted as well as a reminder of the many draft posts that I began only to abandon, just because.

I think before I actually start writing about anything in particular again I need to just lay out what has been happening in my life. For some of you (even my nearest and dearest) some of this will come as a surprise. If the information in the following posts does come to you as brand new information please understand, I didn't neglect to tell you because I don't love or trust you, I did it because some of this has felt like failure after failure and the embarrassment of even admitting it has been too much to bear.

I started writing these posts on the day I finished my Bar exams, a whole year to the day after I SHOULD have completed them. The reasons why it took an extra year and the associated feelings, stressors and anxieties will be made clear as I examine the last year in chronological order. Leaving my final exam I knew I should be feeling nothing but absolute relief, after all these exams have been plaguing me for over a year! However, what I really felt was confusion. I have lived with the stress and the pain and the anxiety for so long that I genuinely had no clue how to feel, what to be stressed about and just what to do with myself. It's a sorry state of my existence that even when the stressor was gone I couldn't just relax.

The good thing about leaving that exam is that in the weeks leading up to it I had started to see more of my life. Everything had become tunnel vision. My future was exactly this: exam, pupillage, career. The peripheral elements of life (where I'm going next weekend, the wedding I'm attending, holidays, hobbies etc.) had just stopped coming to mind. I could see only that very narrow, very stressful, tunnel. I take comfort in the fact that I decided I wanted to get back to writing and take back control in my life BEFORE the exams were over. As you will see, this is an enormous step for me. I want to use this space now as I regain my enjoyment of the things that used to make me me and try new things on the road to better overall wellness. But first, I have to catch everyone up.

So, if you will allow me, what follows over the next few posts is the last year in my life.