Oh, Libby,

I’ve been studying a bit recently.  Which I’m pretty pissed about.  Why did nobody warn me 15 years ago that I was picking a profession that requires reoccurring certification and test –taking throughout my lifetime?  Where was that in the career counseling handbook? Because - and this is the honest-to-goodness truth - no matter how many tests I take, or years of school and training I have completed, there is always this looming, horrific fear that this, THIS, will be the test I fail.  This will be the time they ALL finally figure out that I’ve been just sneaking by the whole time, that I DON’T know what I am doing and that I truly am barely employable. 

I still wake up some nights in a cold sweat after a nightmare of walking into some exam, opening the booklet, seeing the first questions and drawing an absolute blank, realizing I had studied all the wrong material or that I hadn’t even known there was an exam.  Apparently, confidence does not come with age.  And, unfortunately, neither does an attention span.