find your voice

I left school two years ago today. It's one of those dates that, if you're like me, you don't forget. And it's weird, because two years really doesn't seem like a long time, but at the same time it feels like forever. 

I hated it when I left school. We get so used to the structure and the rhythm of life when we have a set timetable every day and a reason to be up and out of the house first thing in the morning. This was worsened by starting college and the various problems that have occurred over the two years I've been here. It's been a difficult two years, and it's been easy to lose sight of the person I was when I left school.

But, I'm now getting ready to leave college and I've been thinking a lot recently about how much has changed in the past two years.

Things are very different now. I think I've learnt a lot about how to deal with things, but I've also learnt a lot about the injustices of being a part of a world driven by money and not by compassion. I've learnt that even when there is nobody making the difference in your life, you have to do all you can to make the difference in somebody else's life. I've met people from backgrounds different to my own, heard stories that I could never have imagined hearing and been lucky enough to make friends who I adore. 

More than anything, I've learnt that problems are momentary. Are they realistically going to exist this time next year? Probably not, so it's OK for them to consume all of your time and emotions for a few moments, as long as you know you have the power to stop them when you need to. Because, whether we know it or not, we all have the power to overcome them.

If you'd asked me two years ago if I thought that I wouldn't care about what people thought of me in the in two years' time, I'd have said no. My 16 year old self would have absolutely laughed at the idea that I wouldn't care about the opinions of others. But, here I am two years later and I don't. I'm always going to encounter people who don't like me or think badly of me, and that's OK, because I have reached a point where I am comfortable enough in myself to know that I don't have to let these things consume me. I can write again without being paralysed by the fear of who may be reading it, and as the title of this post suggests, I feel that I have found my voice once more.

I quoted the following Tim Minchin lyric in my school yearbook. Never did I think that it would feel so appropriate when looking back at what I've learnt since leaving school...

"If you hear nothing, learn from nothing, then you teach nothing when it's your turn."


SOTD is one I heard on The One Show last night which is also very appropriate, Sing - Gary Barlow & The Commonwealth Band featuring Military Wives.

Wishing those leaving school the best of luck with both exams and the future,


Rx