Sometimes Forever Is Just A Second

With results days looming and the inevitable back to school countdown commencing, it seems somewhat topical to consider learning. Anyone who knows me well (or has delved into my blog), will know I hold academia firmly in my heart, as well as, and perhaps more so, than my head. Education is power above and beyond anything else, and I really do believe that. Education is opportunity and chance and hope – the greatest source of all three. However, it’s only as I’ve gotten older (yee olde and wise fellow that I now am…at the tender age of 22), that I’ve realised there are some gaping holes in my knowledge. Some of these holes configure in the shape of “real life conundrums and the trials and tribulations of being an Adult with a capital A”, whilst others expose rather cavernous craters in my so-called “general knowledge”. It is, however, the more generic, “how to live with yourself” holes that appear to be the deepest. If everything we know has, at some point, been taught to us (or perhaps self-taught, but that is often by example) what about the things people just assume we already know…the things we’re preconditioned to do: the things we’re never taught? Here are just a handful of things I wish I'd been taught...

1. Firstly, and not particularly indicative of the kind of life I want to lead but I’m all about the knowledge accumulation: I wish I’d been taught to play Monopoly. My parents are not board game people. This is a sad fact I have come to accept after many a Christmas Day groan in response to my “shall we play a game?!” (it was solidified the year my mum gave me a “pocket book of Christmas games for one”. That said, I have successfully played children’s Monopoly (don’t want anyone thinking I have missed out on a hugeeeee chunk of development). I have, actually, attempted to play adult Monopoly (I’ve even had a go at Star Wars Monopoly). It’s just, I feel I was somewhat “cheated” on the rule front, and, as my Monopoly playing was often both sporadic and sprung upon me, I never really learnt said dos and don’ts for myself.

2. Perhaps one of my learning slip-ups comes down to the fact I wanted to learn well and I wanted to learn the best. I wanted to learn right, so I stuck to what I was taught like an annoying piece of fluff. When my parents taught me the word “sorry,” I expelled it with Tourette like frequency and with minimal brainwork: I was always sorry. So, I wish I’d been taught how NOT to apologise. I wish I’d been taught that I’m not always the one who needs to apologise. I wish I’d been taught that I did not have to stick so closely to the word “sorry,” that my very presence became an apology. I wish I’d been taught that sometimes, just sometimes, I deserve an apology.

3. As much as I greatly value my maths and chemistry lessons of days gone by, I wish I’d been taught the value of art and hobbies that weren’t academic. I wish I had not been squashed solely into essays and equations. I wish I’d been taught that I could do physics AND drama (I actually did, but doing so was questioned and one of those two was frowned upon considerably more than the other – it seemed that I could calculate acceleration, only if I avoided the scripts that favoured words to numbers and characters whose hands held me back. I met no greater force than the resistance of others).  

4. I wish I’d been taught to travel. Admittedly, in fleeting conversations, I was told that my town was small and there was a whole world beyond the school fence, but I wish it had seemed more real. I wish I was taught that travelling is doable. I wish I hadn’t been taught that travelling was “too expensive,” or “not going to get me a job that earns money". I wish I’d been taught to look into ways to make travelling cheaper…ways to find “safe” jobs abroad. I wish I hadn’t been taught that as a girl, "travelling was too dangerous". I wish I’d been taught that, as an 18, 19, 22 year old, jobs would still be there when I came back.

5. Sometimes I really question my ability to adult. I am not a very good adult. I do not like phone calls – making or receiving. And I really, really do not like banks. I wish I’d been taught about banks and ISAs and interest and tax and VAT and arrrghhh. I wish I’d had a little bit more guidance in adulting. I wish I knew why a current account was better than X and Y, and why I should go to one bank and not another. I wish I knew how to be more adulting-savvy.

6. Self-love and self-care. I'm not sure to what extent this can be taught, but the older I get, the more important it seems to be. At the end of the day, we're all we have. Perhaps, learning to be enough for ourselves is both the greatest gift and the greatest lesson we'll ever receive. 

7. As far as trains are concerned, you stop being a child at 16. What’s that I hear you cry? Oh yes, I know almost all other things consider you a child until you turn 18 and are then, indeed, “an adult”, but no. As far as the train companies are concerned, once you hit the age of 16 you quite clearly magically earn money and take up more space and thus, must pay for an adult fare. This, my friends, is the harsh reality of growing up.

8. Life is scary, but you will be okay. There’s a lot of doom and gloom out there. I’m a pretty fearful/anxious person (hello, my own mobile ringing is often paralysing). Sometimes, I really wish someone could have taught me to believe, or at least rationalise, that 99.8% of the time: It. Will. Be. Okay. And of course, fearful little me would have piped straight back with, “but what about that 0.2%”, to which, I wish I’d just been taught: 0.2% is actually a very small percentage. To live in fear is actually much more terrifying.

9. I wish I’d been taught that some people will actively dislike you for no reason at all. I wish I’d been taught that this is okay: you will not be with these people forever. I wish I’d been taught not to waste too much time trying to make these people like you.

10. I wish I’d been taught how to use a sewing machine. Just imagine all the bunting I'd have made by now; it would seem I've been denied a bunting world and this is just tragic...

11. In a world where some people are very loud and very extroverted, I wish I’d been taught, at a younger age, that being an introvert is not a “bad thing”. That said, I wish I’d been taught that just because I am perhaps somewhat quieter, I too am allowed to talk. I wish I’d been taught that I am not here solely to listen.

12. Moles and badgers are not the same size. This, right here, is a classic example of assumed knowledge…I clearly missed out on being taught that moles are, in fact, quite small.

I believe in education. I want to get that out there from the off, because I do: education changes lives. Yet, through much of my secondary school life, education framed me: I was a percentage, a letter, a grade on a piece of paper. I built my worth, happiness, success and dreams around the sharp black edges of a well-crafted letter.

Statistics and league tables, entry requirements and UCAS points: both schools and students depend upon results more than I think either would choose. Regardless, this is the chosen measure of success, because it’s a system that, in many ways, works. Based largely on academic achievement – and often neglecting the sacrifices and consequences, home commitments and extra-curricular ones, the person and people behind the grade and the figures – we place our lives in the superior knowledge of a white piece of paper.

Having just graduated (a process that seems much more humane in comparison to my school-days), it scares me how much importance lies in GCSE/A Level results. It scares me the extent in which ability is judged in one day, in one exam, in one hour. It scares me how, whilst I had all the grades and more, my value as a real-life person was smothered by them. At no point, in all my years of collecting that sealed envelope and scrutinizing the UCAS tariffs, percentages and letters did I see the real me. Those grades were simply the end-product of a long slog and the bar in which my next set would be measured against. I laughed, and I cried, and never have I been more nervous, or more ecstatic. Never have I been less human and more machine.

When I look back over results days, the years are one another’s polar-opposites: GCSE (2011) was The Golden Year, AS (2012) was The Horrendous Year of Flip Flops and Floors, A Levels (2013) was The Exeter-Bound Year. The middle one was traumatic and horrendous, safely contained between the other two. Results Day is the equivalent of being thrown in the ocean, without a raft and told you know how to swim…but there’s a shark coming and the worst storm you’ll ever witness and never in your life have you wanted a life jacket more. I’m not going to tell you “you know how to swim”, and I’m afraid I don’t have the miraculous raft, but I’m swimming beside you and telling you my story. I’m telling you that it isn’t about swimming, sometimes it’s about believing in yourself, all you’ve done, and all you’re yet to be. I’m swimming beside you, because I know what it’s like, to be told you know how to swim, when you’re 100% convinced otherwise, and to be certain the shark’s getting closer, because I know what it’s like to be holding that envelope and be reduced to a grade.

But here’s the thing: through the tears and joy, the exhaustion and relief, the pride and the disbelief, I survived. I cried when tears were called for. And I smiled when the camera flashed. Results days are funny old things – cruel and impossible to truly sum up in words – but they are just that, odd days. They come and they go, and whatever the “result”, you get through it…even if in that minute, or hour, or the days waiting for remark results (yep, been there too…and that’s a certain kind of torture…the shark circles and can’t seem to decide whether to make you dinner or look for something juicier), the world spins too fast and you fear you might just slip off the edge, you hold on. Even when your grip slips and your hands ache and the storm closes in and suddenly all your well-crafted plans are in turmoil, you do hold on. You hold on because you’ve worked bloody hard. You hold on because you hold your dreams close. And you hold on because, however much a piece of paper may have you crying on your teacher’s flip flops/paralysed with a fear you never knew existed, you are 100% more than the sharp edges of a letter.

No grade can measure circumstance.

No percentage can measure memories.

So, be kind to yourself. A letter is just that: sharp lines and curves figured in black ink and printed by machine. A letter can only dictate as much as you let it. That letter is not a reflection of your worth, does not deserve to compromise your happiness, and is not an all-encompassing measure of success. You’re young and there’s a big wide world out there: that letter may well test your dreams, and that’s okay…here’s another thing I learned: dreams are pretty special, surprisingly versatile, and actually quite flexible. A letter is just a letter. And you, I promise, are so much more than a letter.

From someone who’s been there, the highs and the lows: It Will Be Okay.