Why I Need to Move On From the Finishing Line

As soon as my final lesson of the week, the always looked-forward-to English, finished yesterday afternoon, I breathed a sigh of relief. A massive weight that I had been carrying on my shoulders was suddenly lifted when the finishing line - a now not-so-distant weekend - was reached by my aching legs. I'd felt like I had just run the London Marathon because I nearly collapsed onto my seat on the bus several minutes later, overwhelmed with exhaustion and aches throughout my body. Except that, unlike a professional runner who trains for one event months in advance, my situation was poles apart: I had only completed my first week back at school. 

Months since I switched from home-schooling to attending the local comprehensive, my head hasn't entirely caught up with the current state of reality: is it really true that, along with the majority of teenagers, I attend school? Everything happened so quickly - literally within a week after contacting my school - that I've barely had time to accept the changes that have had an enormous impact on my life. No wonder I'm in constant need of paracetamol - a pounding boom echos in my head if I dare to consider every single particle and events of the past few months. 

Although this is a subject that has been explored, analyzed and heavily spoken about various times, I haven't reached a stage where I can pull the curtains down and shut out the protruding light that draws me into a long, typically boring conversation whenever the feeling takes me. Closure is a stage that, from where I'm standing, seems so far away and probably involves overcoming many obstacles until I get there. By the time I land (without a slight bump) at the weekend, I really can't be bothered to leap over equestrian-style jumps to draw a close with this issue: all that I'm able to think about is sleep, play and more sleep. Unsurprisingly, 'closure' is tossed at the bottom of the pile, abandoned until next week and the week after that and...

You get the picture. I'm either too lazy or weak (having only emerged from bed less than two hours ago, my brain is not up to the task of determining which one) to gag myself from discussing the relief of finishing a week of school, so you and I are condemned to writing and reading the same thing over and over again. This is a perfect example of one of my faults: I can't bring myself to let something go. Before you utter the first lyric from Frozen's most famous song, let me get something in first - I'm not emulating a humorous comedienne whose tongue is dripping with sarcasm. 

Mustering the willpower to give something up isn't exactly the easiest of things to do, for reasons which I neither understand nor cannot explain. Unlike Princess Elsa, I'm dong the exact opposite: refusing to let go. And that 'it' is my reluctance to stop talking in-depth about my week at school and relief over the weekend being mine for the taking. 

Sometimes, I log onto my blog, buzzing with as much energy as a glass of champagne, and cannot wait to begin writing. Then, as soon as the editing page loads on the screen, I realize something absolutely terrifying: I have nothing to say. Nothing at all. Gripped by panic, my mind scrambles for themes and words as I (fail to) push my angst aside and begin to write, yet this action only makes matters worse: What I produce is, in my opinion, a holy mess: there is the noticeable lack of structure, interest and passion which usually satisfies me while I'm writing it. 

It goes without saying that everybody has their on- and off-days from time to time; would we really be human if we never fell prey to quiet moods and low feelings? Our emotions have the power to affect our performance in whatever we do which, despite its truth, is a fact that I don't want to accept. As if I can be happy about a short-lived teenage sulk preventing me from fulfilling activities which always put a smile on my face - it only makes me feel worse! 

Living with frustration is, well, the most frustrating feeling that you will ever know: you don't need a finger, let alone a whole hand, to count the positives. None exist. As for the negatives, you would need a spacious setting - perhaps one as large as the shopping centre I visited (and absolutely loved) last week - to list every single point, which does no favours for lifting your mood. 

My current surroundings - a darkly lit room with a window showing the very worst of what British weather offers outside - are unlikely to cheer me up either, though I'd probably be complaining if I was sunbathing on a sunny beach in Dubai! And, as a result of my extra long lie-in, I'm fighting constant urges to return to bed which, of all places, I'm sitting on to write this. Not what I'd consider as a brilliant start to the day...

There is a reason why I embrace change. Instead of waking up to a same, unchanged routine each day, I awake with a sense of excitement in the air, my heartbeat increasing as change makes its presence known. From visiting new places to trying new things, I love change - and wish that there could be more of it. 

After the first week of the new term two months ago, very little - apart from people's offensive behaviour towards me, which never improves - has changed at school. The work might be a bit more varied, yet I begrudge spending five days at a week in such a dull and lackluster environment. One of the few ounces of pleasure I've had access to is the weekly serving of chips on a Friday, better known as 'Chip Day', but I hardly got a kick out of eating the crispy skins yesterday. 

School bores me, frustrates me, upsets me and makes my life a living hell. There is so much stuff that I would never have the heart to discuss here because it upsets me so greatly or is inappropriate in line with the nature of LAAMT. Bullying stalks me, a less wouldn't be quite the same with expletives, prohibited items and threats of detention and the youngest pupils are not even immune to physical attacks which result in an emergency trip to the nearest hospital. Once Saturday rolls around, all that I'm thinking of is how relieved I am to escape that hellhole for two days - but forty eight hours are never enough. Unless I make a run from the prison that dares to call itself a school, the weekend will never fully relieve me of the fear that grips from Monday morning to Friday afternoon. 

Change needs to happen: how will I be able to progress if I'm left in this current state of affairs, which prevents me from progressing forward? I'm unhappy, lonely and angered by what both my brother and I face on a daily basis at our school. This week proved that, unlike what I used to tell myself, staying there until I finish my GCSEs is no longer an option. However, all of the decent schools in the area are oversubscribed - mine is the only one which is not. What can I do? 

For the sake of my family and my sanity, I'm trying to forget about these worries - yet have already proved that I can't take my mind off it - and enjoy the school-free time I have while it lasts. 

If there is one thing that I've learnt this week, I need to move on from the finishing line. There is a world beyond getting the week without bullying being a bother - it is about time that I've begun to walk towards it.