Happiness Is A Number

5 Days Earlier

The big wait is so nearly over; and before this reaches you it will have drawn yet closer, or even have charged into the sunset with a path of disorder in its wake. So I thought I would write this blog now, since even though I feel no anticipation, I know everything will change when those results come out. I speak of course of my final end of year exam scores.
I’ve never been that enthused by long waits. Waiting I can deal with. But this whole results thing has turned out like presents at Christmas. You see, I don’t know about you, but when I picked out something for a Christmas present ages in advance (the lie of Santa never did grace my chimney); I always felt excited and keen, in the lead up to and just after the purchase. But the wait almost never failed to take the edge off the experience; and most of the time when Christmas Eve rolled around, I couldn’t have cared less. Of course the reality of the present was something to be enjoyed though.
But this is what the results have become. A few days after exams, my life revolved around them, and I couldn’t bear having to wait a month. But then life after school became so, so much more than VCE results and I all but completely lost sight of them. Everything was mainly about accommodation, money and my grandmother. I know it’s a vital thing to have ignored, but the wait completely exhausted my interest in just over two weeks. And after that it became far easier to take it for granted that I had got into university, and throw caution to the wind because ‘there is nothing I can do about it now’. I don’t really pay much mind to the results because in the big picture they have already come to mean nothing. If I get in, great, everything continues as planned and I still have the same things to worry about. If not, then that’s OK too. A slight reshuffling is all that’s in order.
I guess since I’m not missing the amusement of school anymore, I find it hard to rise from my apathetic state and strive for anything more at the moment.

But change everything it did. It is strange to note how in my shellshock the following parts of the blog continued without me actually detailing the moment, the score, or the immediate implications… so this is them.

At approximately 8:10 AM on Monday the 15^th of December, an hour after stuffing around with jammed servers on the internet, I resolved to call the most likely engaged $1.93 per minute results hotline. I got through on my first attempt, and after hearing a taxingly long spiel from the recorded message; I was read my score. I believe after hurriedly scribbling down the numbers on my mother’s desk pad and clunking down the phone at the idea of being charged to hear it all again; my first word was “Fuck.”
That number embodied so many things to me at once. It was the culmination, final evaluation and product of 13 years schooling, it was the verdict on whether I would be able to get into the course I wanted – if any, it was a mark of my achievements in this last year that I would be asked about by friend and stranger alike… but above all; it meant loss.

It was an average score which left me with a forlorn hope at best, of getting into the course I wanted; and admission only into what is generally acknowledged as the ultimate wank as far as Uni courses go: an Arts degree.
The realisation was instant, but the reality was illusive.
My grandmother called and managed to misunderstand it to mean I had failed to graduate, and hung up on me for the shame. And so among heartfelt commiserations from my mother as she left for work, I called my English Language teacher. She was the only one of my teachers whom I really cared to tell regardless of the result. She had some comforting and understanding words to say. She reminded me of the Second Round Offers, the option to transfer, and how unjust the situation was as a whole. She seemed really glad I had shared this although not so joyous moment with her. I managed to keep my voice steady the whole time; and I even managed some jokes in there. We talked right up until she had to leave for work/school. We bid an awkward goodbye, punctuated more by tight-lipped knowing smiles than words. And now alone in the house, I put the phone down, and it all came over me it once.
Great heaving sobs of realisation. I cried so hard it could hardly even be described as that. I wailed all the way from the phone to the bathroom and back. I hardly took a moment to note my appreciation of the tragic spectacle, just long enough to realise that it was the most piteous thing one ever heard. The most mournful desperate sound, like someone had put a stake through my heart and dreams, rising to a pitch with the exorcism of the purest sorrow…
And then I was good. I went to the kitchen and brought the bottle of Baileys out of the cupboard and took a couple of generous swigs, with the air of it being me against the world, while I distracted myself with the internet.
I can’t remember when the thought came upon me, but somewhere between then and the idea of being asked about it by everyone I passed from then on. It occurred to me that having these results is akin to having cancer, (of course cancer is a very serious, debilitating and often fatal illness). But I mean in the way that everyone asks you how are you are, and once you tell people, every conversation becomes about that, and it’s never good news.

You must understand then, that there was none more surprised than I, when that minion of a senior school co-ordinator called me up to tell me that I was to be presented with an award for being in the top 10 of my year.
And here, at that presentation, as the assistant principal booms with boorish joy over the end of the highlights reel: “Makes ya proud!” It makes me reflect on how comfortably little I have amounted to. Of course it’s better than average; but you don’t grow to expect grand things when you’ve only been at or below average. It’s more about doing your best, not the best. But I was always one or two rungs from the top of the ladder and it is the most teasingly unfortunate position to be in. I was so close I could touch it, and the drive to win has thoroughly infected me. I always wanted to beat the try-hards of this world; and I always managed to acquire all of the expectations and not enough of the result.
This night just proves that. The school reunion quest to amount to something. And so it begins.
They think they’re a success already, I can see it. They think that to be good at school is to be good at life and things are on the up and up for them. But success is not forever. And as luck would have it the inverse is usually true; some of the most successful people were dropouts and some of the best workers never make it and lose everything.
I was having a conversation with a girl whose social status I could never figure out. On one hand she was plain, nerdy, and had very narrow and uncommon interests. She was an intelligent, nice person, and as misfits we tended to gravitate toward one another in Art class. But on the other hand, she was somehow cooler than I, more popular even. She had gone through school with the now year 12s, and I had merely snuck my way in by means of a special program. So when the year 12 school captain (who thinks she is ‘the shit’ with her asymmetrical haircut) came to talk to her; I was suddenly deemed too uncool.
But I overheard, between them, after their obligatory exchanges with me were complete; that they had both cried upon receiving their results. It hit me like blow to chest. I felt like turning round and saying something. These are girls who got scores in the 90s; who are vying for scholarships among the best of the best, and blew their entrance requirements out of the water. What the fuck do they have to cry about?! They didn’t fail as I did. They didn’t kiss their plans goodbye and hope to god that they could at least get some sort of desired tertiary education, no. They’re just lucky and ungrateful dramatists, and even I can say that with my repute.

I never remembered these nights as so ugly. Shambolic, to use one of my least favourite words; and it thoroughly deserves it. There’s this ominous thumping going on like someone jumping up and down next to a microphone, the over the top glare of the lights, the badly timed and executed presentation, one very angry and outspoken toddler; and a horde of teenagers whose attention span ran out 20 minutes ago.
But one of the undeniable rules of life is that you can make anyone do anything for recognition or money, because as a human they believe they are owed it.
And so it came to be that we wasted a whole evening and the petrol getting there (a fact that was not for a moment lost on my mother), were bored to tears, given fleeting but at least laminated acknowledgment, and got into yet another tiff.

My mother hates me lately for some reason. A raining, spitting, radiating mass of negativity she is. If there is a problem with anything chances are she can find it and spout a foul mouthed rant about it for at least half an hour. And I really feel the bad vibes in the room. I guess that comes with a taste of freedom. I hate to recite one of the most clichéd and favourite teenage phrases, but – she doesn’t understand me. When we went shopping the other day; well it was less a shopping trip and more an arduous and necessary errand. She had previously promised with kind-hearted sympathy for my predicament and a mind to cheering my up that I would get to do some shopping; but since then it had descended into a hurried visit with the sole intent of handing in my school books and picking up the necessities. The only thing I wanted to do was glance at the hair care section to see if there was such a thing as a non-chemical perm. But in her evil mood she didn’t want me around at all, nor did she want me to leave her sight. I was understandably bummed about having to endeavour to help her with the shopping in her present mood, and that I wouldn’t be released to resolve my very simple want. And the more discontented I became, the angrier she got.
The problem is she doesn’t see the parallels. She doesn’t see how very much a simple thing like that can mean to me. Building a chook shed is to her as dying my hair is to me. Her home maintenance: my beauty care. I appreciate her chook shed building, whereas she views my hair care as a stupid vain and frivolous obsession. I’m in a very fragile place at the moment. I’m a failure, I’m stuck, I’m sick, it’s a bad time of the month, and I’m hated. I told her that I felt awful last night and she told me ‘Yeah, you look awful too.’ and I burst into tears. It’s not fair.
So that afternoon when I put the trolley back, as I got out of sight, I just thought – if I start running now, I’ll never have to come back.
I’ve never ever thought of running away, aside from the usual hypotheses of a wandering mind; but I mean, I’m a rational person, and I never actually wanted to. But this was a powerful and direct feeling; my mind was already ditching the trolley mid way and racing between the parked cars, ready to plan my next move. Hiding in a shop somewhere north where she never goes nor thinks I would. Somewhere with sporting goods, industrial supplies, or accountants. Asking strangers for money over a lie – a few dollars for a bus fare, a train ticket or a parking meter. Biding my time before hitting the Opp shop for a bag, different clothes, and a beanie to ruin her description of me. Then hitchhike out west where she would never think to look, with a truckie or a nice family who would believe that under my smudged make up and Opp shop clothes I was 15 and running away from an unplanned pregnancy to an abusive boyfriend…
But the trolley collector was dead ahead and asking me for the trolley. And so I surrendered it, and my visions of running away with it.

I hate how mediocre the whole thing has become more than anything now. If I was going to fail I wanted to fail in grand style, one last and glorious fuck you to the establishment and their fucking expectations. Fail so bad that there would be no university to go to. Then I would earn some sympathy, and I’d have the upper hand in the misery stakes with my mother for a good while. And we wouldn’t have to go to any presentation nights, or worry about accommodation for another year. I’d work full time, and I’d finally be financially independent. That; or I wanted to be happy of course, genuinely happy and feel a sense of accomplishment after my 13 years of schooling. If I’d gotten into my course by a doubtless margin, it would have all been worth it, I would have been ecstatic and I could have ridden that high through the anxiety of trying to find accommodation. Life would have been made.
But society teaches you that you’ve just got to smile, and nod, and pretend it was what you planned. And it takes an awful lot courage, heaps more than you would ever think; to rebel at that pivotal moment and scream for the injustice and wretchedness of it all, and to take your anguish out into the world. Or proclaim your happiness, celebrate and embrace it and use it to break down all the barriers that once stood in your way.
And for some reason I don’t want to just get by. One path is pulling me towards sticking it up people and proving what an inspired failure I really am; and the other into saving the remnants of what doesn’t have to be a compete tragedy. And the worst thing is, no matter what I do, it will turn into exactly the same predetermined ordinary shit.

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