Monday 27 April 2015

Deadlines


The biggest mistake that any of us ever made was deciding that school was synonymous with having an education. We assume that four-walled, poster-covered classrooms will be the golden path that’ll lead us straight into the arms of success, open our minds until the depths of our knowledge twinkle in our eyes. We all fall into the trap of sleepless nights, bottomless cups of coffee and a headache that feels as if it will never end. We spend years inhaling dates, facts, and formulas to later spit out the information onto a page you hope never to see again to in turn receive a page that was supposed to make it all worth it – the red ribbon wrapped certificate you are congratulated with at graduation. Is that what you were waiting for?

Because school is aching shoulders from a backpack that gets heavier with every tear-stained textbook you wish you could understand. School is the ink scribbles onto the pages of an agenda that begs you to stop writing, pleads that it has no more room to remind you of new assignments, but they keep coming anyway. School is the glass-eyed look that your teacher gives you at the mere mention of too much work due. Manage your time better, they say without the slightest hint of sympathy. School is a week in which each exam looms like an ominous grey cloud over your head, all those projects with deadlines that feel impossible to meet, the essays you rewrite a thousand times to add a + next to that B to feel just a little bit better about yourself. 

Because at the end of the day, all the deep purple bags under your eyes, all the tears that tattooed your cheeks, all the teeth bearing and fist tightening comes down to that one letter. One letter that claims to define you, has the power to dictate your future. And, if it isn’t good enough, neither are you. You never have been, and you never will be. Because that’s what school is. Now tell me, what happened to the education? 

Sunday 19 April 2015

Sunday feeling


You wake up a minute or two before your alarm and find that the morning’s tricked you. The sun smirks through the glass of your rain-stained windows and as you lie beneath blankets you feel the entire world is right there in front of you, within your reach. But it’s never quite like that, is it? Instead, the alarm ring deafens, reminding you of all you said you’d get done. Do you listen?

And then you start to realise that it’s become that time again. That time where everything just kind of sinks into the pit of your stomach. The feeling deepens around lunchtime as you flip the pages of a textbook you wish you could take the time to understand. It becomes more intense with each speck of dust growing on the gym membership card you pretend to use. I work out four to five days a week. Keep telling yourself that. It’s 4pm. Your sister took the dog for a walk –got tired of waiting for you. You reach for your phone because you “deserve a break”. But what have you done?

All those plans and promises you made, did you ever get to any of them? Or are they just there for the future that’s never quite as near as it seems? That voice inside your head lies to you, tells you you’ll start in five minutes. It soon becomes ten, and later fifteen. Time ticks, the seconds slip through your fingers.  

You spend your entire life telling yourself that you’ll do things. The question is: when? Shake that Sunday afternoon feeling, forget about the dread for the week ahead and look at it as another chance. Because it could be your last. So all those items on your bucket list, start checking them off.  Get on a bus you’ve never been on before, see where it takes you. Fall asleep to the sound of the rain. Order an entire pizza just for yourself and spend fifty cents on extra cheese because you know it’s what your heart desires. Watch all of the Harry Potter films in a single night and marvel at the magic – it doesn’t just have to be in the movies. Ask a stranger something, anything, look into their eyes and listen to their stories and realise that that is what life is all about. And all those promises you made, start keeping them. Because maybe then you’ll go to bed on a Sunday with the thrill of the next week spilling through your veins. Sundays shouldn’t be solemn, they should be worth something. Make them worth something. 

Saturday 4 April 2015

Breathe


From the second I woke up this morning, I knew it would be one of those days. A day in which the tears don’t stop tickling the backs of my eyes. They beg to be released, as if that would help somehow, provide me with some bitter clarity. A day in which I am both empty and full for all the wrong reasons. And I don’t know which one I prefer. A day in which my voice cracks and shakes in a way that resembles the shattered thoughts inside my mind. A day in which I want nothing more than to lay in bed and play my music on shuffle until Coldplay’s The Scientist lights up the screen, and then I’ll play that on repeat because nobody said it was easy. But no one ever said it would be this hard.

On those days where your feelings can’t quite fit inside of you and everything you’ve been trying so hard to hold onto seems to be slipping through your fingers, breathe. Breathe through the storm that’s gathered inside your body. Take a second to remind yourself that that growl of thunder wasn’t aimed at you. Don’t let anyone tell you otherwise. Wipe away the guilt-filled raindrops that blur your vision, you don’t deserve to look at them anymore. And, one more thing, never ever apologise for the way you feel. Not to yourself, or anybody else.

So, on those days where your veins throb and your heart aches and you feel as if you’ve lost everything you ever were and everything you ever had in that grey cloud, try listening to the thunder. Let the lightning guide you for once. No matter how dark it gets, the storm will pass. Breathe through it.