The line I've placed as the title is completely worthy as it is without a doubt, possibly the greatest line I've ever heard in a song. Never since have I heard a sentence so meaningful to me. Tonight I am trying to imagine when my race is run. At the moment I feel as though my race is high school. Once this race in run I guess I'll move on to the whole "life" thing which will be undoubtedly a far longer race.
But I simply cannot imagine when this race is run because for the last five years of my life have felt like an eternity. I guess I have become so comfortable with the mundane routine of my educational institution that try as I may, I just cannot see the wide world over the fence. The feeling is a little like being a small child who can't see over a shop counter at McDonald's. I desperately want to see what's going on up there, yet it's always out of reach.
I suppose it's because of the attitude my mother has positioned herself to apply to my education that although the real-world seems desperately out of reach, I have never allowed myself to completely lose sight of it. The times where I almost have were the times where I made the worst mistakes of my high school life (*cough* Senior subject selection *cough*) and the times where my mindset was a solid as a rock where the times where I found it just that much easier to make it out alive.
Basically the attitude I have is that high school doesn't actually prepare ME for anything I want to do. What if my life goal was to do amazingly well so I could be handed awards and medals to show my parents to gain their approval and go to university straight away to become a doctor because that's what smart people do* and I'll totally be super-rich if I do and I can get married and have smart children who will carry on my legacy until I flat line (note: I am aware that flat lining is a common misconception that the patient has just died)? Well I probably wouldn't know it, but I'm sure my whole life would be a flat line. I guess I'd gas my head in the oven in the end. What I am trying to say if that for such people, high school prepares them for that and probably means a lot to them. For me, preparation for life occurred over a period of nine months back in 1993 - when I was in my mother's womb. That's the only prep you need, the rest is up to you.
I think I am more of a suffer in silence sort of person. I hate school as much as the next suicidal, angst-ridden teen but I don't parade around making sure everyone knows my business and achievements. I also am not one to look down my nose at those who's achievements aren't printed certificates or in smiling pictures of them shaking hands of guest speakers who you would like to shoot. I believe school is a narrow tunnel and everyone has become especially judgmental of anyone who doesn't fit through it.
I don't fit. I wasn't built for high school. I don't have the motivation to waste time memorising crap that has about as much meaning to me as the origin of the dirt on my shoes. To me any waste of effort isn't part of my life. Teachers dislike me, wannabe-scholars give me insincere acknowledgements and I sit around in a tie pretending I care. I don't.
All this being said there are people I will miss, people I will still love, things I will remember and things I will regret. There are three people that make it a lot easier for me too and for that I'm thankful.
That's the race and I think I know why it has taken so long. It's a race I never cared about winning. Only finishing. I knew that running fast wouldn't make the race any quicker, it would just exhaust me and possibly distract me. So I've been walking, crawling even. It's taken a really long time and in school terms I'm miles behind the runners. In life terms I'm right beside them.
*Only because Australian doctors are pretentious assholes who want to be paid more money than they deserve and keep their jobs decided to complicate the shit out of becoming a doctor so it would be incredibly hard for no reason - is why becoming a doctor is what misguided smart people with pressuring parents and no passion for life do. I'm sure some people actually want to be doctors but the amount of high school kids who aspire to it is infinitely false. Until they fix this I guess we just have to have people waiting in hospitals for foreign doctors to have their visas signed because we don't have enough doctors.
