Hello friends,
I’m currently sitting on a bus about to start my last official day of college ( ignoring the 4 exams I have in May… Be grand) . I think it’s only natural that days like this are ones spent in quiet reflection of the past year and all the events that lead me to this moment.
This academic year has honestly been one of the greatest in my entire life. I have done things that I never thought I could and met the most amazing people. I started this year with a broken heart to be very honest and with a bruised soul (and ego). I had spent the last 2 years of my life working towards a goal that disappeared as quickly as opening a brown envelope. I’m not going to lie, the initial impact hit me hard and I genuinely didn’t know what the future held. The first few weeks were spent crying, faking smiles and in silent recluse. I found when people were talking I genuinely couldn’t hear them, like I was on autopilot.
I remember a very distinct moment sitting with my mum in the car on the beach at the end of August saying ” I just want to freeze my life right now and just stop everything”. I couldn’t see a way out, a way to stop the cutting pain of failure. I had gone so far out on a limb that I didn’t realise the higher you reach the harder you fall. I felt hopeless.
I had a choice to make. I could run from this this or I could rise from this and I chose the latter.
Flash foreword to the 20 of April 2017. Present day. I have the most incredible friends, am one year into my degree programme, have an amazing summer planned and am genuinely doing just fine. I have learned so much and gained a much better insight into love and life and the true meaning of unconditional love and support.
I was in a bad way starting the year. My self worth was pretty low and the guilt was crushing. However, in the most unlikely place, the last place I ever thought I’d be, through new found friendships I found myself healing. It rare to find people who will love you no matter what, I was lucky to find so many of them in college. People that didn’t run away in absolute horror when I told them about my Leaving Cert saga but rather offered a reassuring congratulations and an admiration for trying.
I’m refining my definition of failure. I’ve decided that to fail means at least you tired and I will go down swinging for anyone who has the courage to try anything.
I suppose what I’m trying to say is that maybe this was the lesson all along. Not getting what you want isn’t always the worse thing. The sky is not falling. But maybe I needed to go to that place of failure and despair to get to this one. I may not know all the French verbs, sexual reproduction of a flowering plant or electronic configuartions but as far as life this is something I know for sure… Sometimes what looks like the end, is actually only the beginning.
-K
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