All In Your Hands

So I really like this essay I wrote for the school magazine.

I’ve never thought boarding school life would be much of an adventure. I mean, I’ve heard stories and all but come on, who would ever actually believe what people say unless you’ve been through it yourself? If you’d ask me a year and a half ago, I’d say you’d be delusional to find me in a boarding school this year.

      But things changed. I did apply for boarding schools around the time PMR started and I actually did want to go. This isn’t a story of my life in a boarding school; it’s more of my perception. I wouldn’t say I’m someone with a lot of thought nor would I say I’m wise in any way but out of 16 years of living, I’ve picked up a think or two and I’ve realized that things are never what it seems. That’s life: Expect the unexpected.

      I came as a naïve adolescent without expectations, just eagerness. I came with all inferiority blocked out. I came as a new person – as a person I myself hadn’t met. I didn’t know what I was doing; I didn’t know where I was going. What I did know was that I didn’t want to be the person I was before, I wanted to stand out. “Go with the flow.” Sometimes you just have to have that leap of faith and jump over the fence without thinking of the consequences. That’s when you know your adventure has started.

      Towards the end, you start noticing things being different than when you first got in. A LOT had changed. You get to see people mature through time; you get to see yourself mature –physically and mentally. Some have grown taller, bigger, prettier, and handsomer and it’d be a lie to say that each and every one of us has not gotten wiser in a way.

     

        Towards the end, I realize that it’s all about choices: whether you want to end the chapter sad or happy. Of course everyone has different stories, but we go through everything with our friends – the people closest to us, our second family. Despite that, our perceptions and our memories differ. We choose what we want to remember. All the good times, all the bad times, all the heartaches, all the joy and all the pain.

    

       The adventure of young love, that’s a story we all go through and get away with. I mean, as much as people tell us that it wouldn’t last and it’s not worth it, it’s high school. Truth be told, we’re all naïve kids with curiosity the size of the Atlantic Ocean. It’s a fairytale but the ending is a nightmare. What girl wouldn’t fall for a knight in shining armor – or in my case, a knight in a white cast on his left arm with a charming smile? Like I said, we choose what to remember. When you think about it, it’s not something we should regret, because it makes us understand more. This is life before we know who we’re going to be, it’s the time to explore.

       With a lot of smiles, there come a lot of tears. Homesickness, betrayals, break ups. They all lead us to doing crazy things and thus, ruining our lives, or shaping us into better individuals. You choose. Love is part of growing up, whether it’s real or not, whether it’s long or short. It’s the thing that spices up our lives, making our stories more interesting. ‘Cause in the end, when all this is over, it’s all about the stories we have, the anecdotes we tell our children and the people around us.

       Out of all the pain in the world, the pain that hurts most is the pain of saying goodbye. Some people come into your life and they leave temporarily, but some leave forever. The departure of a favorite teacher, the leaving of a good friend. Acceptance towards reality: that’s what sucks most. Appreciating something or someone when we have it or him or her: that’s one lesson no human will understand.

  

      Before we know it, we’d all be leaving. We’d all reach the age of 17 and we’d be finishing our SPM and we’d all leave school. The adventure that started ends and that’s when we close our book. It’d be that time where we’d start fresh; start a new story. And by then, we’d be better because we know what’s right and what’s wrong and we’d know how to handle situations. High school is like the pre-school of life. It gets us ready for the future, when we really live.

        So my form 4 ending was really unexpected, because it ended as a love story.  The knight in the cast whom I met two and a half weeks before school ended actually became important in my life. But our short love affair has ended, as school ended. Relationships with my friends were in a good state, despite the tears and the backbiting. Teachers’ perceptions of me might be a little rocky, but oh well. When else can you cause trouble? And I got to give a last hug to my favorite English teacher whom I will miss a lot ‘cause she’s gone next year.

      I could end this chapter in satisfaction and hope for a better next year.

“Ends are not bad things, they just mean that something else is about to begin. And there are many things that don't really end, anyway, they just begin again in a new way. Ends are not bad and many ends aren't really an ending; some things are never-ending.” 
― C. JoyBell C.