Stories from back in the day - Finishing HSC

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As I drove into work this morning I heard DJ's talking about the fact that results for the Victorian Certificate of Education (VCE) were being released today. Young people were ringing the radio with great excitement after having received their results via text message this morning, wanting to share with the whole country the fact that they had passed.

Wow! They get their results via text message now.

Back in my day young whippersnappers! Back in my day......we had to wait months for our results to come out on the horsedrawn coach that would often be delayed because of the droughts and flooding rains.........................

Well...no, not really....but almost!

Back in my day, the VCE was called the HSC (Higher School Certificate) and I did mine waaaaay back in 1984.

When Madonna looked like this.

And we went to the movies to watch stuff like this:

Who you gonna call.....???

And Dolly magazine told us all the important things we needed to know:

You bet your sweet life I wanted to meet Ralph Macchio!

I think the passage of time has sweetened the memory of my HSC year somewhat. My memory recalls that it was the school year where we all sort of grew up a bit and I found that people who wouldn't give me the time of day at the start of the year would sit and chat on occasion by the end of the year. We all thought we were it and a bit being the seniors of the school, having our own Common Room and HSC jumpers that "we" designed and wore. I say "we" because the decisions for the hideous jumpers were not made by general consensus. We had a choice of lemon and mauve. *shudders*

Like I said, it was the 80's - and the colours were either pastel or fluoro. (see above Dolly cover)

But I do remember the workload. Oh the workload! I studied English, English Literature, Biology, Human Development and Society and Art, which compared to the brainiacs who studied English, Pure Maths, Applied Maths, Physics and Chemistry seemed like a breeze, but it wasn't. The essays were brutal, the pracs were insane and the amount of time I spent on my artwork and the backup work for the artwork almost did my head in. There was a lot of time spent in the art room after school, nights I didn't go to bed and classes I didn't attend simply because I was sitting in the Common Room madly finishing assignments and essays and assigned questions to hand in by the end of the day. I even remember running to one of my teacher's staffrooms at the end of the day to hand something in and she was actually standing at the door counting down the seconds before she wasn't going to accept the work. Pressure!

Study? What was study? I was just doing the work. 

Still, on that final day, when the final bell sounded I cried like a baby. (and we hadn't even had the exams!) School was finishing and life as I had known it for twelve (13, if you count Prep) was about to change.

It was a strange thing finishing school. For a week or so after the exams I kept thinking that I had forgotten to do something; that there was a piece of artwork I hadn't handed in, or an assignment to finish or an essay to write. It took a while to just relax.

The results of our exams didn't come out until January - and back then they were POSTED out. You know....snail mail.....before the internet. 

Unfortunately, our family was on holiday somewhere up in the mountains so our neighbours were instructed to forward my envelope to the caravan park where we were staying. This meant that I was going to receive my results a few days after my friends, but at least I wasn't going to have to wait until we got home from holidays to know.

The wait was excruciating. What made matters worse was that bushfires had broken out around the area we were camping and we were all on alert, waiting for the word to evacuate. I remember laying in the hammock in the middle of the night seeing the glowing of the fires on the mountain. There was a chance my results wouldn't reach me.

We asked every day at the Caravan Park Office if I'd received any mail. 

Until, one day.....there it was. 

My heart was thumping out of my chest. With trembling fingers I opened the envelope. 

"I PASSED!" I screamed.

And promptly burst into tears!

I didn't realise until that moment the stress I'd been under; how anxious I had been. I never assumed that I was good enough to pass, but pass I did....and I did better than I expected. 

We celebrated that night. My parents, who never had money to spare, took us all out for pizza (back when pizza wasn't as common as now) and the best icecream I've ever eaten. All the tensions of the past year dissipated. I didn't even think, "Now what?" It was all over and I was glad.

Now we live in a world where students know their results so quickly it makes my head spin, but I feel for them because they are facing more competition for university placements and employment opportunities. I don't know if the world is any easier these days. 

What was it like for you at school?

Did you do HSC/VCE?

Out of bed, actually remembering my own name.

Unfortunately, managing to get out of bed to remember my own name is cause for congratulatory pats on the back at the moment. A friend once likened grief to skipping double-dutch; constantly jumping to avoid being tripped by the quick succession of ropes. This week I've had to agree

The primal wail has not happened. Silent tears, yes. Most times I'm just getting on with it; doing all the things as it were. However, this old bod' is letting me know its under some duress. I've lost a kilo I possibly couldn't have afforded, the flip flops in my chest have been uncomfortable and the dizziness annoying. Please don't worry though. This is all very normal for me and everything will find some kind of equilibrium eventually. A very dear psychologist said to me once, "For a person who feels things very deeply you are actually quite out of touch with your own emotions." I didn't really understand what he was trying to say at the time. I do now.

Despite wanting to hold every single one of my loved ones close over the past week I have watched them all embracing their own independence and autonomy. Grabbing life and opportunities with both hands has been the order of the week and I've watched them connect with others, form new bonds and become more sure of themselves  I wish I hadn't been so frightened and protective when they were younger. I wish I had've let them fly sooner.

Over this week I've become connected with so many other people that I knew by name simply because we were mutual friends with Stella but hadn't really taken the opportunity to connect with. It seems that my world has expanded in some way, and again, I am embracing and being embraced by a whole community of people I am proud and privileged to be counted amongst, simply because I occupy a non-normative form. How lucky am I? Never before have I been so thankful to be different.

And that statement would've prompted Ms Young's face to crinkle up, give a squeal of glee and earn me a high five. But it's totally true. It's honestly how I feel.

Finally, after 47 years.

That, Nanna, is your miracle.

The horizon is nothing

And a horizon is nothing
Save the limit of our sight.

- Carly Simon Life is Eternal

I have decided that I no longer fear my own death.

Being amongst those left behind is the thing I struggle with. 

All of us facing the endless stretch of life without that loved one. 

Day after day of one foot in front of the other.

Which I guess, in the long run, is all we can do and what is expected after such a loss. 

I do fear for those left behind after I'm gone....

Feeling this ache that may diminish through the passage of time but never goes completely.

Stop all the clocks, you broke the internet Stell.

November 2014. She and me.

Dear Stell,

I first met you ten years ago. Ten years. Really, was it only ten years? It feels as though I've known you all my life....but I know that's impossible. I am after all, fifteen years older than you....and yet you always seemed so much wiser.

You came along to an SSPA convention to run a theatre/performance workshop at the request of our mutual friend Carly. You and I hit it off immediately, but you know what Stell? That was you. You hit it off with everyone you came in contact with. You genuinely liked and were interested in people and in your presence, each of us had your full attention. Your eyes would light up, you'd smile and laugh and you'd make us feel that we actually meant something to you - and we did! And those hugs! Oh my gosh! When I first met you I was so scared I was going to break you, so ignorant was I! I soon learned that you too, were capable of great, smooshing hugs that felt warm and heartfelt and so I hugged you without reserve.

You turned to me during a rough patch after your beautiful heart had been crushed and wounded. We would talk for hours when you felt life just couldn't go on and you didn't know where to turn and what to do.

"Breathe Stell...." I gently told you. "Just breathe....."

And that's what you did. And your heart healed and you got stronger. Hell....you didn't just get stronger, you became powerful and feisty and I loved you even more!

Later, when my heart felt crushed and damaged beyond repair and I didn't know what to do or where to go or how to live you held me and said to me,

"I'm going to give you the same advice a dear friend once told me. Breathe, Leis........just breathe..."

And so I breathed....and my world went on. I became stronger.

You were the first one to be by my side when I called you desperately from Intensive Care at the Children's Hospital that cold, windy day. You were the first one there to hold my hand after watching my child come back from the brink following an unexpected complication from surgery. You dropped everything and just came, letting us know we weren't alone. You opened your home as a refuge from that nightmare and you held my hand through the night, stroking it, giving comfort.

I'll never forget that. Ever.

I loved it that you and I had opposing views on some things. You, a staunch atheist, me a woman of faith. Not that we ever butted heads about it, but we respected and loved each other enough to simply leave it alone respectfully. We both loved each other too much for it ever to come between us by having endless, pointless arguments about it.

You know Stell...when I got the opportunity to be there on the red carpet at the premier of X-men: Days of Future Past with the possibility of interviewing Peter Dinklage (The Dink - as you so affectionately dubbed him) I felt so hopelessly inadequate. I kept thinking, "It should be Stella doing this! She's got a much higher profile than me; she's more popular and most of all, SHE'D KNOW WHAT TO DO! I'm just a NOBODY!"

But Stell, you showed me that I'm not a nobody and that I'm just as capable as you at getting the word out there, challenging, questioning, provoking and connecting. I love you for that.

After some time of radio silence between us we both managed to catch up twice within the last month at some celebrations. You, in your incredibly generous way encouraged me by being so excited at the changes you saw. Instead of being this non-self-accepting, ableist person you once knew (and loved just the same) you saw a woman who talked to you about the pride she felt at identifying with a rich culture where diversity, difference and disability are not only accepted but celebrated vicariously! Your eyes lit up, you grinned and you high-fived me in celebration of how far I'd travelled in the last ten years. On Saturday 29th November we caught up and danced like wild things together, both of us throwing ourselves around with reckless abandon - not as a political statement, but because we loved to dance. We sang loudly and badly and affirmed to each other just how much we meant to each other.

Before we parted that night you told me that you were hoping to come to The Other Film Festival and attend the On The Road With Snow White forum that I was facilitating on Saturday 6th December.

That Saturday, as I led the discussion I looked out into the audience to find you. You weren't there. Little did I know that you had already cast off. The news had not yet reached us....

On Sunday, the girls and I were talking about how good it was to see you. On and off I'd blurt out a random, "Crips Ahoy!" as I'd heard you exclaim when you'd spy a group of wheelie crips out and about.

The news still had not yet reached us.....

The news reached me on Monday morning...and my life turned inside out, upside down and 'round the wrong way. I cannot fathom it Stell. I really can't. I've taken a huge deep breath in and I can't exhale. It keeps hitting me over and over again....and yet I feel like it hasn't hit me at all. It will. I know it will....and then there'll be this primal wail of this terrible, horrible grief that is gnawing away at my insides.

And yet I hear you, somewhere in the In-between......

"Breathe, Leis'........just breathe........"

My Sarah said yesterday that you broke the internet. Tributes are flowing from all over the globe Stell! All over the GLOBE! Do you know that? I hope you do. I hope you know what a huge, crip-shaped hole you've left. I could write here about all your achievements and what an impact you made in so many different facets of the community.....

.....but I'm not going to.....

I'm going to be selfish.....

This tribute I am writing is what you meant to me. I am writing about the Stella that I knew. That wonderful, gregarious, cheeky, generous, inherently flawed, feisty, vulnerable, beautiful soul that was simply too big for the body she inhabited. You facilitated change in ME Stell. A little bit of you lives in me.....

And the wonder about all that is that you gave everything of yourself to everyone else you touched too......so that all of us left behind can connect with the little bit of Stella that is in each other.

You're not gone Stell. To get through, I'm thinking that you've just gone off to do your work elsewhere and left us to carry on what you were passionate about. I for one, will keep the flame burning.

I'll just keep breathing ok Stell? It's all I can do.

I love you. Always and ever.