I don’t know if I can go on like this anymore. Head in hands, fingernails dig into my sweltering brow and I can feel my chest getting tighter. I long to smash my surrondings into a fiasco of shattered fragments, tear the blotchy skin from every inch of bone…drop the pen from my shaking hand. All too soon I won’t be able to breath. I need to be free from this immense pressure.
I know that all you’ve ever wanted is to see me happy. You’re forever urging me to grasp every opportunity with both hands and work to my potential…I mean, after all that is your job. But, I have to tell you that you’re wasting your breath and I’m really not as perfect as you seem to think. I beg you to understand that this isn’t me and underneath the facade of top marks, good exam results and awards I’m just like the average student of my age in the way that I can’t cope with the pressure and my whole life seems to revolve around impressing others…impressing you.
I suppose every single school in the country can divide it’s classes into the same categories. Firstly, there are so-called ‘dunces’ who possess a common inability to learn. People hate to admit this but, nobody expects a lot from these lucky students and so when they just about scrape an E grade, their teacher mutters that they’re disappointed, and with a shake of their head and a roll of their eyes it’s all forgotten about. These are the kids that are never ever subject to meeting high demands and can continue to mess around for the rest of their school days without interference.
Now, at the opposite side of the scale there are the people who seem to be good at everything without even trying; the people who have always done well and so if they step out of line people like you come down on them like a hammer…you think that I’m one of those people. You think that I genuinely want to revise frantically every single minute of every single hour of every single day. You think that all my achievements are effortless and you think that I’ll be able to carry on like this for the rest of my school life, at university and then during my career. It’s shocking, I know, but that is not how I wish to live my life.
When you look me in the eyes with reassurance, things look completely different in my head. I feel like the walls are caving in on me and it’s my job to push them as far away as possible and keep on top of everything. I feel like I’m stood on some colossal stage and that thousands of spectators are watching, waiting for me to perform some miracle. For after all, you’ve told them that I can cope and that I’m a born-to-be genius.
I’ve heard you tell me that you regret not working hard at school and these are the most important days of my life…which I agree with considering that these two seemingly-insignificant years ahead of me will unlock my whole future…but I want to be able to go with the flow and tackle every challenge as it comes, in my own way. Let me live the life that I was given…I can’t make the regrets from your past disappear and I am most definitely not your second chance. You have my whole life story written in your head and if I rebel or do my own thing you tell me that I’m a failure and for this reason I feel a sudden pang of guilt and then feel even more obliged to live up to your expectations.
Even now, as I’m jotting down these words, I have to pause every so often to ensure that every spelling is correct, that every full stop is in place, that I’m pronouncing every last syllable precisely. If you carry on pushing me in this direction one day I’ll crumble due to the strain and you’ll realise that I’m not as strong and capable as you think. All I ask of you is to back away slightly and give me a choice. I’m not going to make the mistake of living a life that someone else told me to live, because after all this is the mistake that you made and I’ve seen how much it has made you suffer.
