This Is The End (Of The Innocence?)

The ultimate extent of school's symbolic significance will not dawn upon the majority of us until we are well and truly past it and into the next stage of life's undulating trajectory. The school has been a playground in which to run, to climb, to fall, and to get back up again. It has allowed us to make mistakes and learn from them. But the time has now come for us to reluctantly leave this playground, to walk away from the slides and see-saws our enlarged frames can no longer fit comfortably into. It is time now to walk undaunted into the brave new world, anticipant but fully aware that any slip will carry with it greater ramifications, any fall larger and more painful scars. And yet there is this tremendous sense of hope and of promise that our six years in this hallowed institution have ensured we have acquired all the necessary skills to stand us in good stead to face the blizzard of real challenges. After all, one unforgettable lesson cliched ad infinitum has been that The Best Is Yet To Be. And hence I stare at the obstacles before me with defiance. To the degree of half a right angle, and beyond.

I watch with chagrin as my peers around me start turning sentimental, each one a domino precipitating another emotional "collapse". Look up, my friends. The future is bright. Not exactly orange, but gold. And rosy. Once we get past the 'blue' of our moody departure from our beloved school we will realise the other colour in that marriage is gold. In a way it certainly symbolises how we will always be fondly swept over by lapping waves of nostalgia and yet still stand fast in our quest for golden glory in whatever fields we choose, knowing full well we are the best advertisements (and pride) of our school. Life can take us out of the 121 Dover Road compound, but it can't take this special space out of us.

Perhaps this ability to remain upbeat and optimistic (and not really sad about leaving) stems from the fact that I have never felt attached enough to my class (6.14, in case my detachment from that class has manifested in my general behaviour to an extent you don't know my class) to wince and cringe at the excruciating cracks of bonds of friendship seemingly being broken. In any case, and honestly, they don't. It's just the artificial and metaphorical construct of a class that is destroyed. We are still friends with those we choose to be friends with. In fact such an event as parting should be almost cathartic in its relief. Finally your choice of friends is entirely discretionate; no more having to pretend to befriend a particular person just because he is in your class and you need to maintain workable relations. Sounds good to me.

Sometimes I wonder if I would actually be saying all this if I had had to leave the school as a member of 4.15 back in 2006, or if 614 comprised all 27 members of 3/4.15. I still look back at our brilliant experiences in fond remembrance. It was fun, hilarious and happy being together but those words are erroneous understatements. Defining the essence of that class became so difficult that in end I guess we settled for the nebulous "good times" vague enough to mean really nothing and indistinct enough to be readily applied to all situations; hence its seemingly all-encompassing totality. You know we ought to have had a real farewell that year, out of character though it would have been for our non-committal class. We took solace in the fact that nothing was really "over" since we'd all see one another again along the corridors the following year. And yet that same feeling, that essence which evades verbal definition, just slowly ebbed away from neglect and want of attention, like a dying and withering plant. The paradox is (and would have been) this: If we had held a formal farewell to acknowledge things coming finally to an end, then perhaps they wouldn't since everyone would have a summary piece of what the two years meant etched into their memories. Without one, however, even this fundamental memory is denied and when realities tear us apart nothing is left and the centre cannot hold. It is a pitiful bluff to suggest that in not acknowledging that "it is over" then it simply is not over.

I realised all this at my class's pseudo-party this afternoon. I realised I was a bit reluctant and sad about leaving the scene of my memories behind, but that the memories I treasured were not shared with those classmates at the party with me, but with the great friends from 4.15. None of them were like "best friends", but they were good. Really good. All of them. I don't know if I would feel the same way about 6.14 if I gave it two years, but I seriously am sceptical. SL2/HL3 is another matter altogether. It may stand as only a small portion of 6.14, but that little class feels like everything to me. Everything that these two years have meant, now mean and will be meaning in the years to come. Don't get me wrong, there are wonderful classmates in 6.14, but it's just a pity, I think, that my paradigm of what a class should ideally be was so permanently shaped by the experiences of 4.15 that nothing any of you mustered could live up to it. If it's any consolation then if in the last four years my best class has been 3/4.15 then 5/6.14 must come second. (Like no s**t, really).