Tired Eyes

21.8.09

When I returned to my high school for Back to Newington day on Saturday

I felt as much detached from it as I did still a part of it.

The politics behind every selection on that football field;

The contrived monitor of rowdiness, his smile and small talk, cringe-worthy;

The reluctant sense of duty of the Year 12 boy, the carrot of the P word dangling before him;

The pretension;

The impatient train of patriotism, sweeping them all up en masse;

The pride: if you can't feel it, quick, fake it.

Implanting myself on the various banks

Amongst the ranks

Again,

A familiar sense of security seemed to fill me up.

My time there being not even a year behind me,

I still remembered it all rather well.

A whole crowd of us on the same cloud,

Rising up to the same end.

From the incubator we would emerge -

Some better than others -

To finally face what we had been preparing for for years,

What we had been protected from for all that time.

My purpose and my function of that time seems so clear to me now:

Show up to school functions and work hard to get the best marks possible.

I forget who told me this

But I'm pretty sure it was Berra Mossemenear.

Many people like to say that their school years were the best years of their life.

I simply cannot believe that.

To say that, to me, shows that you never grew as a person after leaving school,

You didn't make use of the tools you got in that time.

In many ways I think I understand this idea only now.

Life after school has no definite direction,

No strict outline or criteria for success.

You cannot simply read the "rubric" as Hunnisett tells you to.

In real life, you're required to be proactive, to make decisions for yourself -

And that's more than deciding what you want to "be".

What is success... to you?

What do you want out of life?

What will make you happy?

What will sustain your interest?

My answers are certainly not yet complete.

In any case I don't think I'm capable of explaining them myself.

I remember very generally what advice I gave at the Prescott House Year 12 farewell assembly last year.

Remember that you cannot study all the time.

After big blocks of assessments, take time out to recharge your batteries,

Be honest with yourself, don't beat yourself up if you go off the boil sometimes.

I compare myself with the me that was the sayer of these words

And I know that the extra dimensions of post-school life are inherent in its construction.

It is impossible to understand until faced properly.

Seeing friends go through what I did only last year,

Their tired eyes,

Their angsty Facebook status updates -

I envy them greatly.

Not because I'm afraid to try out my school-derived skills in the outside world,

But because school is a truly unique experience that will never

Ever

Be recreated

And it's hard not to miss it sometimes.

Would it be too sappy if I posted photos from my last days here now?