It’s September already! This year is moving way too fast. I can’t believe that summer is over. This UK weather was toying with my emotions for real! Autumn is now here (the cold couldn’t wait to return *side eye*) and everyone is going back to either school, college or uni. My two younger brothers have just started college after finishing secondary school and my sisters are about to start their courses at college and uni. As the oldest, they can tell u how much I go on at them about their education, trying to make sure they don’t repeat my past mistakes but also of how proud I am of them for where they are now and how far they have come. They weren’t like me at school that’s for sure!
But the truth is, I can’t help but feel some type of way. Not jealousy, but looking back in anger at my failed school experience. I can’t help thinking to myself ‘that should be me’. I’m 25. I should have graduated with a degree by now and possibly have a masters degree too. I did this to myself though. I wasn’t ur typical ‘bad gyal’ at secondary school. I wasn’t rocking the latest trainers or the side ponytail (lol). I’ve never had a physical fight before in my life! So I wasn’t the girl everyone was afraid of for a beat down. Actually I was more prim and proper with my appearance at school. My problem was my mouth. I talked way too much. You could smell my attitude coming down the corridor. One person wrote in my end of school yearbook ‘if looks could kill, I’d be dead already’.
Yup! That was me. Rude. Defiant. Stubborn. Rebellious.
I carried a behavioural report card around in my beautiful Louis Vuitton handbag. I thought I knew it all and had all the answers. And then in my last year I pretty much stopped going to school all together. I couldn’t get myself out of bed. I struggled internally with facts and fiction, how my life was at the time and how it was in my head. I had developed this fantasy and I would cry with such disappointment. I wanted so much for my life but didn’t want to work hard for it. I expected everything to be so easy. Even though that’s not the life I was brought up around somehow I expected it to that way for me. I wanted to be rich and famous and thought that it dropped from the sky. When it came to exam time I couldn’t perform as I had missed most lessons and managed to come away with 4 GCSEs grade D’s. When it came to college I have dropped out 3 times (the most recent almost 3 years ago). I had come to the conclusion that studying wasn’t my thing and I wanted to make money so I tried looking for an apprenticeship. But that failed and I ended up working at KFC at 17. I had to do something my parents would not allow me to be sofa surfing all day and them pay for my lifestyle. If I wanted money I had to earn it. And so I’ve worked ever since.
Looking back at my experience and where I am now, I understand why I went through it all. I had to learn the hard way. Like I said I thought I knew it all. I think the only thing that eventually dropped from the sky was me. I hit the ground but whilst I was down I decided that going forward I am going to work harder for my life and my dreams then I had done before.
I may feel away right now but my feelings are equally coupled with determination. The determination to be more then my bad choices and mistakes and the determination to reach the levels of success I know God has planned for me. So I’m preparing myself from now so I will be ready next September when I go back to study (couldn’t go this year because of my beautiful 9 week old baby girl :)) my mind will be right, my attitude will smell fresh and my attendance on point! Finally I will be able to say I AM THE GOOD STUDENT!
‘Intelligent children make their parents proud; lazy students embarrass their parents.’ Proverbs 15:20 MSG
xo Kim
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