It’s the last day before the Easter holidays. My eyes are
watering. There’s glitter in them. It’s prickling and it’s in my mouth too, all
over my lips and it’s itching my scalp. My fingers are a clammy mess, holding the
hands of somebody else – two people, perhaps – and we are silently squeaking,
jogging on the spot in ridiculous leotards, blinking rapidly. The signature
school drum roll begins with the cocky Year 9s until everyone is furiously
bashing their feet as we wait. We grip our hands tighter and I look up at the
assembly hall ceiling and mouth “Come on.
Say it’s us”.
… It wasn’t. We didn’t
win. Because that’s not how it works. You can’t win the House Fashion and Dance
Show by crossing your fingers and praying to the assembly hall ceiling God.
Incidentally, I have, along the way, also found out that you
can’t get into the Guildford pantomime in Year 8 by clasping your hands and
whispering “please”, nor can you get
an A in your Philosophy A Level by clenching your fist and fervently ‘hoping’
until you have a headache. I’ve learnt it over and over, hundreds of times,
that success isn’t about hoping and praying in the moment that you’ve done
enough – oddly, it’s about actually doing enough beforehand.
But knowing this, of course, does not make the disappointment
sting any less. It didn’t stop me crying for an evening when I didn’t get into
the first Year 7 play. It didn’t stop me feeling winded and broken for days in Year 12 when I wasn’t
employed for the Junior School “Late Stay” job (and all my friends were. A
painful year). It in no way softened the blow when I wasn’t picked as a
breakfast presenter last year on Student Radio, or when I didn’t get in to the
National Youth Theatre.
Yet knowing this – knowing every single time I’ve been
rejected that last minute praying didn’t affect an outcome – did (eventually)
stop me crossing my fingers and mouthing “please”
when I want something to go my way. Because frankly, I started wondering: what if
this is a genie-in-a-bottle scenario, and I only get three “please” moments in my entire lifetime
which actually come true? Would I want to waste them on my house winning a
school fashion show? Would I use it to be an NYT member? Or would I rather work my arse off just a little bit harder to make those things come true by
myself, and save the “please” for a
moment when, God forbid, I actually need it?
And once again, I know that moment is not now: I was
recently nominated for a Student Radio Award. I’m incredibly excited. It’s almost
time for the awards ceremony, and I’m well aware that this time tomorrow
evening the feeling of good ol’ disappointment may well be slapping me round
the face like Justin Bieber walking into another glass door. It’s fairly probable,
statistically – but although the result is unknown to me, it has already been
decided, and I did my best at the time. Finger-crossing, last time I checked,
ain’t going to whizz me back to June and tweak my application, nor is it going
to change a judge’s mind set, or the standard of my competitors. All that’s
left to do is take a deep breath and practice the Joey-Tribbiani-Gracious-Loser-Façade.
I’ll smile and clap politely, saying, “No, really, you deserved it, and never
would I steal your award and present it as my own for decades to come…” And
shockingly, I will probably live. Maybe.
The point I am trying to make (to myself. I am trying to
counsel myself here, let’s be honest) is that each moment of disappointment
happens for a reason: either one completely out of my control (come on,
Wellington house, we know that Music Contest judge was biased), in which case
there’s nothing to be done anyway. Or alternatively, the effort wasn’t quite
put in, and the work wasn’t of a high enough standard. So next time, you ramp
it up.
Blatantly, all of this logical knowledge is never going to
stop the ten year old inside of me feeling like I’m back in Year 5, being told
that my sister got into our local theatre’s production of Jacqueline Wilson’s Double Act when I didn’t (proper killed
me, that one) and feeling like a puppy that’s just been kicked with a
lead-soled boot. That’s just human nature. It’s not going to stop my fingers
twitching tomorrow evening as some part of me wants to cross them and look to my old pals, the assembly hall gods, and really intensely wish that it all goes as I hope.
However, it does mean that I can breathe deeply and put off the fervent praying yet again, because there have
been plenty of times I wasn’t disappointed. And at every single one of them? I didn't use no "please"! I’d
worked really, bloody hard.
