Remember that?
Remember school?
Writing essays after essays for college applications has forced me to take a long, hard look at my life. Memories I've so far pushed down and refuse to acknowledge have come bubbling up to the surface.
I never belonged in secondary school. Not for one moment, not for one second. It was not my place. Sure, I made friends and I love them to this day. But that feeling of standing on the fringes, of being the outsider looking in, never went away.
I remember attending this party of a friend of mine, every single year, because she was a good friend, and because she never failed to wish me happy birthday, and because one year she bought a cake for me. I don't forget things like that, I remember that black and white Oreo cake, I remember how I felt so happy that for once in my life, I got something. It wasn't the countless surprise parties that I arranged for my friends, it wasn't the elaborate gifts we spent hours planning. It wasn't even about the cake. It was that feeling of knowing someone bothered enough to call my brother and ask my home address, and to deliver that cake, simply because they wanted to. But going to these parties of hers and her friends at time, should I be so lucky to have been invited (note sarcasm), I felt fake. I would look out at the people and I would count the minutes so that I could go home. I would call my brother or my father to come pick me up, because I'd had enough. It was an exclusive club, these people were in and I wasn't in it.
That was school for me. I remember how I used to stay at home at least 2 days a week in early secondary school because I hated school. I hated going through the motions, just smiling and talking when I just felt like screaming. I loved staying at home and watching the marathon of Kim Possible and Totally Spies and That's So Raven (sue me) and so many other shows I can't remember.
I remember how I refused to join the LEO Club because all the popular people were in it, and it was "their" club. Same with Scouts. I don't blame these people, most of them were amazingly nice, but they belonged in this exclusive little club, where you could only gain admission by means I never knew. Not that I wanted to, at least after a while. All the "community service" they used to do, washing cars, helping out the neighborhood screamed "fake" to me. Yes, I know some of them really cared but why were most people doing it? Scholarship, they used to tell me. Resume. I admit I too got carried away at times, and started thinking of my resume. I too did certain things because of that nagging doubt and the look people told me when I told them I was not in 5 clubs and I didn't hold posts in any of them. That condescending tone of "It's okay. At least you're good in your studies" infuriated me and was one of the reasons why 9As for SPM was not enough for me. No, I had felt the need to prove to these people that all the time I spent not participating in "community service" was not wasted, that it'd gone towards getting better grades.
What did it matter in the end? Did you get a scholarship? Did you get Bank Negara or JPA or another scholarship? Did they care that you did community service? Was it just your grades?
I've gone off on tangents here and I apologize. The fact of the matter is high school was terrible for me and I really don't know how some people can say it was the best time of their lives. I envy you. But for me, as I left high school, I finally felt that feeling of suffocation lift.
I saw and old teacher of mine yesterday and went up to say hi. We spoke for a little while and she told me that she'd seen me in school the other day. Yes, she had. I had gone back to get a recommendation letter. But the only thing I remember was trying to get out of there as fast as I could, because being near that place again, that horrible, wretched place, brought back so many memories I didn't need, of countless rejections and failures and that one feeling I had, that secret feeling over 5 years that I never belonged there.
Zack Kim - Love is Easy (Original)
5 hours ago

