Contest Entry: My Failure Story

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The silence that night was so loud, it throbbed in my ears. As if heightened by nocturnal shifts, the clock was the center soundtrack, next to my scrambled thoughts. I lay on my back, eyes looking without actually seeing.

My mind was very far from my room as my father's words played repeatedly.

"I don't think you're going to go very far in life," he'd said earlier that day, "because for something as simple as paying attention in class, writing your notes, doing assignments, reading, and passing, you're struggling so much."

And resumed hours of marking me all over with the wooden cane.

For a second, I'd thought that since I was in my final class before university, things would get better and I could be a tad bit smarter.
But I dared to dream too much and my reality hadn't changed. I was still declining at school.

It didn't matter that I'd asked other students and teachers to tutor me when they had openings. My father - like many others - had written me off. Save for my mum who would say, "I know you can do this, you just need to realise it yourself."

I couldn't go a day without someone mentioning my performance, mostly in mock concern. I wanted so badly to blink the pain away but life didn't work that way.

As if I couldn't get any worse, my self-esteem had taken a nosedive for the pits. I'd lost my sense of self and my new normal was anxiety.

Few years later, I'm reminded weirdly about that night. Perhaps because the silence is similar. My thoughts aren't quite in the room but they're at peace.

They say that certain events take place to accelerate character development. I suppose failing woefully in secondary school kick-started mine. Some part of me wished that my father had done things differently.

But like my mother, I realised I could do it - and I did. I still am.

The dark and weighty sadness no longer grips me. I may have been crippled by my inadequacy, but happy endings. Right?

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