A big thing happened in a very small way yesterday.

There was a drop down menu with two choices.

One said February 2010, the other July 2010.

I changed my saved response from the former to the latter.

I am not taking the bar exam in February.

There, I said it, it’s real and I can’t take it back. I could not tell you the last time I made a decision that was more about me. The list of reasons to take the exam sooner rather than later are quite staggering. There is only one reason to delay – me.

I’m not ready. And I don’t mean in the way that I have not yet prepared enough, or that I am afraid to take the exam and need to work up the courage. I mean that I am only six months past the death of my only child, and I am not ready to take on a challenge that requires such radical intestinal fortitude.

The exam is only offered twice a year. It requires, by all accounts, two months of exhaustive work to prepare. Most of my colleagues report steady workweeks of 60+ hours in order to ready themselves. They all passed. (Mostly because they worked so hard, but partly because my friends are geniuses and totally rock at life.) The failure rates skyrocket as time lapses between graduation and testing. If I ever want to practice law the rest of my life I must take the exam, and soon. But not yet. I am putting my foot down against peer pressure, naysayers, statistics and tradition and saying simply, not yet.

This is not a decision I made lightly, nor one I made alone. It is a decision with large and many consequences. I am hoping that one of them is my ability to study effectively when the time comes. Because right now I doubt so many things about myself but I have no doubts about my ability to focus. It is severely compromised, and it is returning slowly. I want to give it more time before I ask so much, before I take on this grueling, torturous deed.

I prayed about this a lot. As much as I don’t trust statistics to be my friend anymore, I know rolling the dice is still a part of life. Staggering failure rates are also not my friend. I am concerned about the implications of delaying the exam. But I am far more at peace with those implications than I was with trying to face this right now. I am not up for the challenge, but I will be. Then when I pass you can all make fun of me.

A lawyer walks into a bar and sees a doctor, a priest and a politician. He says, “What is this, a joke?”