Longing For The Ides Of March – Or Why I’ll Only Be Lurking In The Shadows For A While

“Fatigue is here,

in my body,

in my legs and eyes.

That is what gets you

in the end.

Faith is only a word, embroidered.”

 

[ Margaret Atwood – The Handmaid’s Tale ]

 

I’m beyond exhausted. I’m drained. Actually, being drained sounds too euphoric. I think being drained would up my energy level by 1/12th now (maybe more, maybe less: y’all know how I am with numbers).

I’m pretty sure most of all have read a comment of mine saying something along the lines of “I’ll deal with that come march.“.

Why march you ask?

Well, because starting the 23rd of february and ending the 2nd of march I will spend my morning (8 am – 1 pm) sitting in a too small room, with too many people, with too little knowledge and too much cause for a nervous breakdown in the Courthouse of Cologne, Germany.

I will sit there for five long hours every day for 6 days (Saturday, Sunday and Wednesday’s off) and try to write a judicial report on a made-up international legal scenario including a bunch of ludicrous characters named “a”, “b”, “c”, “d” and sometimes even “e”, “f”, “g” (etc.) for the most entering into business ventures or any sort of legal relationship no person with half a brain would ever even consider.

I’m not entirely sure, why solving a case, you will probably never come across in the real world would tell anybody anything about your legal ability, but that’s the rules of the game.

I’m too tired to tell you how much time I’ve spent studying for this and especially how much time I spent worrying about not passing it (Oh did I mention only roughly a fourth of the candidates pass the written and are accepted to the oral? Did I mention those aren’t random people of the street, but people who have for the most part spent 8 years studying and working and not sleeping?).

I’ve done a pretty good job at “working against the panic”. Just staying super occupied and busy – just like my little hamster “Flash”, who ran in that wheel like his life depended on it (well actually he spent more time sleeping than running, but I liked the image).

Today it caught up with me.

I cracked.

I didn’t just cry.

I was hysteric.

It was not pretty.

This is probably not going to be as funny for you as it is for me, but one of the measures of legitimate surpassing of self-defense is, if you did it out of “fear, frustration or confusion” (as opposed to “anger, rage, revenge”).

“Fear, frustration and confusion” is exactly how I would describe my mental state.

So (and now I finally come full circle), I realized I’m not up for reacting to your posts the way they deserve. I’m too – everything.

So although I won’t be gone, I might not always make myself know.

I’ll be there.

Somewhere.

Lurking in the shadows.

[ “Release Me” – Oh Land ]