🎓 Results Day: I’m Still Got It!

Today I received my results for completing my first year as a law student. I know I only studied part-time, but it still felt like a real achievement.

And let me tell you — it was an anxious time.

This wasn’t just results day. No, no. It was also Transition Day at work — when little Year 6 primary pupils swarm into our comprehensive school like wide-eyed meerkats, trying to figure out what a Bunsen burner does and whether I’m a teacher or a scary dinner lady.

Normally, I love that day. It’s exciting and busy and I thrive off the energy. But this morning, their delightful neediness was unbearable. I just wanted one minute to log into the university portal and check if I had made it.

Before leaving the house, I’d sent a good luck message to my co-mooters (we’re basically a team of courtroom gladiators now), wishing them amazing results. But as the morning went on and my phone buzzed like a toddler on a sugar high, my nerves started to rattle.

By lunchtime — after multiple login fails and a mild existential crisis in the staffroom — I finally got through.

And yes. I passed. All of it.

I went home on a cloud, smiling ear to ear. Got home and shouted to anyone at home..."I PASSED".

Cue the music. Cue the slow-motion head toss. Cue Polly the sausage dog, spinning in confused delight beside me because “Mummy’s squealing and dancing, and clearly that means treats???”

I was so relieved, the stress evaporated from me in waves — helped along by the ever-glamorous midlife hot flushes. I smiled like someone who had just survived a particularly difficult Bake-Off technical challenge.

I had spent so long doubting myself — thinking I was too old, too tired, too distracted, too mumsy — that these grades felt like a personal standing ovation.

I rang my mum. She told me she’d never doubted I’d pass and said I was her best achievement and how proud she was, she must tell all her friends! (Move over, Eiffel Tower.) Even my dad, who rarely comments on anything that isn’t rugby or accordion music, muttered that although I’m “not young,” I still “have a good brain.” High praise from the man himself.

Daughter #2 screamed when I told her. “You’re SO clever!” she said. “You’re amazing!” (Correct.)

So tonight, I celebrate. Not with Prosecco (because I have work tomorrow and can't let my counselling learner down), but with something better: self-worth. I am clever. I am amazing. And I’m absolutely, unapologetically ready for Year Two.

Polly still doesn’t know what all the fuss is about, but she’s proud too — probably.