Falling

metaphors and s**t woohoo

You know what it feels like? It feels like I studied for a test, but not too hard -- like, maybe for twenty minutes, or just between classes, going through notes and glancing at digrams -- but not too hard, because I knew this stuff inside and out. I could feel the knowledge in myself, just waiting to be released -- excited, even. It’s my favorite class, and I’ve always gotten A’s, so why would I worry? This is what I do. This is what I’m good at. This is what I’m here for.

So I go in, and I sit down, and I get the test packet. And it’s hard, but I was expecting it to be hard, and I’m prepared. I glance at the questions and the answers are immediately clear. I write them down fast, confidently, in pen, unafraid of having to go back or rethink a response. I know this stuff! And I’m done well before the bell, and I hand it in and walk out with my head in the clouds and my heart full of pride. I aced it. There’s no other possibility.

And then a couple days later, we get them back. I’m sitting and waiting for my paper and I’m getting it back and I look at it, and I don’t really believe it. It’s not a perfect score. It’s not even a good score. In fact, it’s not even passing. I wasn’t even close.

I look at it and I can’t process that it’s real. It’s not possible. Sure, I didn’t study much, but I knew that stuff cold! Every question, every single question, the answer was just there in front of me -- and I was wrong. Not all the time, but way more often than I thought.

So I panic, of course, and later I cry a little bit (okay, maybe a lot), and I curse the world for putting me in this position (of course, I put myself there, but I couldn’t admit that yet). And then I decide I have to do better. So I start trying to study all the time, for hours a day, for this one class. And then on the next test (it feels like they’re all the time now), I look at each question, and I think about it, and think about it, and think about it. I consider answers, but dismiss them, because how could I be right after being wrong about so much? I consider new answers, and those ones don’t seem like they could be right either. In all honesty, I’m too afraid to be wrong to settle on an answer for almost any of the questions. These tests, which I used to love because I could prove myself, become my enemies; I no longer know what I’m good at, or good for.

After a while, my grades go back up, I stop being so panicked. I stop studying so much, and bring it down to just an hour or so every day. But in the back of my head, that one test is always lurking. In the back of my head, I know I’m capable of failing miserably if I ever let myself go again. And so I don’t. I work harder, and I’m determined, and I don’t hate it -- I don’t even mind it. But I have to do it, now. I can’t slip again. I can’t fail any more.