It's strange what you miss

Later tonight, the final results of the most recent actuarial exams are released into the world. Since I am no longer taking the exams, this isn't the big worry that it used to be. I have no chance of failing anything. But also no chance of passing anything either.

It's actually three years now since I qualified. I hadn't realised that until just then. The time has gone both quickly and slowly, and a lot of things have happened since, both good and bad, but I think it's fair to say that life is on the whole more enjoyable without the continual threat of exams hanging over my head.

But tonight is also a first for me. Every results night since I qualified, I've still been out drinking with my friends who were still taking the exams, helping them build up the Dutch courage needed to face the internet at 10pm to check the results page. I have tended to find that I would still get really nervous as the time approached, even though I wasn't getting any results myself. It was a strange feeling. Empathatic nerves.

Tonight for the first time, I'm alone at home with no firm plans to go out. All my friends who were also taking the exams have now either qualified, left York or just don't fancy going out in the same way we used to. It feels like I've finally had to grow up and leave that exam-results part of my life behind, no longer even able to live it second hand. And it's made me a little sad.

Sure, tomorrow no doubt there'll be drinks bought by those who have passed and/or qualified, and we'll all have a good time and fall over, that's cool. But I miss the tonight - the feeling the future is uncertain and you don't know which way the tree is going to fall. A combination of fear and excitement that makes you feel alive.

If you'd asked me three years ago, on the night I qualified, whether or not I'd miss that feeling, my answer would have been no. I'd have said that I felt sick and just wanted the whole thing to be over with. But we change. I'm not the same person I was then. In another three years I'll probably be someone else again.

So good luck to anyone expecting results tonight. You have my sympathy. But maybe a little bit of envy too because for you, the best times are still to come.