It wasn’t until about 11:45 last night that I realised how much I would lose. Before then, let’s be honest, I was quite indifferent to the Year 12 Final (insert event here). I thought it was a shame that I would be losing people, people that I would more than likely never see again, because I thought that if they could be bothered to see me they would be able to call me up. An eventuality, I thought, which would occur at most to 5 people. Because I don’t have Facebook, options for future linkages were minimal.
However as I thought a little longer (while listening to, um, music), I realised I was losing a little more than that.
Let’s face it, finishing secondary schooling is a loss and a gain. A gain in the respect that we have a springboard into a lot of things. Uni, TAFE, deferred Gap year, volunteer work, exchange, apprenticeships. There probably are a lot more. Meanwhile from the gap between primary and secondary it’s simply a question of which school you’ll go to. And of course the people. There are, I think, 68 people in this grade. Drawing upon SBS’s slogan, Seven billion stories and counting. There are 68 different stories, and although we are not necessarily counting in a sense they are 68 individual stories. Even though it’s a small school by Sydney standards these already have a distinct degree of complexity and worth. After unpacking the word ‘people’ in respect to our grade, I realised I was missing a sense of worth in all of us.
After today things will be different. Mostly in the fact that we won’t be seeing each other. We all have entered this school based mainly on circumstance, whether you have arrived in 2008 in Year 7 up to 2012 in Year 11. But we leave here with bonds, to both our friends and teachers whom we connect with this school. These bonds have been built by the fact that we see each other daily. But now we don’t have that anymore. The 18th of September, 2013, is the last time that has happened. And this loss, the loss of unity, of togetherness and the constant companionship is what we would have lost today. Because after today, but accelerating after the 6th of November with our final HSC exam, the bonds will inevitably grow further apart.
It will go to a phase similar to what happened in primary school. Looking back on it, there were plenty of great people that I have met at primary school but had not kept in touch with. In my case, this was made more difficult by the lack of use of a particular social networking tool, that I think is great for catching up with long lost friends but not for anything else. And to be honest, it terrifies me that the bonds with some of the great people here will be pulled and eventually broken.
So I had a think. Who else in the future will I be able to see daily? Who else in the future would I be able to have similar bonds with?
The only answer to that question I had would be my potential workmates, a massive x number of years ahead for most people. Meanwhile our friends now require next to no effort to maintain, as we are in constant contact. It’s not going to be this easy in the future.
[I recently watched a coming-of-age drama called Reply 1997. The majority of the story follows a group of 5 students that were in a very similar stage to where we are now, on the cusp of adulthood and permanent maturity. As the drama progressed into the future, these friends kept their bonds but it was clear to all that they were not able to see each other as often. A rather emotional scene within this drama was to be had in 1998, where the protagonist moves away from her hometown to pursue her university degree. It being in the late 90’s, she travelled on a bus away from not only her home city, but the people as well. As the bus moves away, her future self on voiceover (free indirect discourse ha!) briefly describes the events of the next seven years until 2005.
“September 11 happens, Incheon airport opens, the World Cup, and then the invention of the KTX, that takes her from Seoul to Busan in two hours. “This is how the 21st century began, and our ’90s disappeared into history. And I thought that my ’90s had ended forever that way…”
These years will go fast. In the drama, she lists these external events. A stark contrast to the depiction of her 90’s, the detailed depiction of her high school drama, her noughties are accompanied with a brief description, listed, and then fly off. For us, 2013 will soon disappear into history. But I don’t want to forget the people we shared it with. For everyone, I hope that we will persevere in building our relationships. Ones that transcend the pitfalls and triumphs of life. In the future, we will look back on these days. It might not necessarily be thought of in great documented detail, but I want us to look back and smile. Because these were the days. The ones where we looked forward and not back, the ones in which some of our closest friends were beside us. The ones where we smiled with youthful innocence. Because people like this will never come again. Cherish the people that we have beside us today, because these close relationships will come few and far between.
