An ode to the winds of change
school life and learning to embrace change
Hi there! I’m taking a little break from the photography series to bring to you an essay I submitted for my school’s press club. It’s a mutation of an older essay: Contours of the mouth, roadmap of the self, but I decided it deserved its own post anyways so enjoy!
It’s been 2 and a half years since I first stepped into the Braddell campus, in my starched uniform a size too big for me. There I was, wide eyed and flush with imposter syndrome, mouthing to myself that I belonged here. But as hesitant as I was toward this new change, both the campus and I have blossomed into something significantly richer in the short amount of time we’ve been here.
Much like 13 year old me, the freshly built Braddell campus definitely had its shortcomings. Sure, the campus was shiny in its overcomplicated architecture and modernist approach, but that was exactly the problem. It simply had no character.
But in the few years I have come to make the Braddell campus a second home, it has defied that initial judgement and more. Countless shoe scuff marks on the back of classroom walls, the giant cracks in the walls that seem to have appeared overnight, the various art murals that have brought out the lifeblood of rgs to the surface of her skin: the campus has truly morphed into one of our own through a process otherwise known as decay.
Decay seeps into everything in our lives— lost friendships, past hopes, ambitions, and time itself.
As much as time allows us to languish in the length of the school year, as much as we complain about the never ending days of schoolwork, the end of the year always creeps up on us. Decay still puts an end to the lazy viscosity of school life and leaves one reaching aimlessly in a haze of syrupy sweet memories, longing for the good old days of a simpler, more innocent time.
I’ve found myself longing for that recently, for the clock to be rewound on a particular friend group. To return to a time characterised by easy friendships and even easier laughter; blissfully unaware of the vicious battlefield the group was quickly turning into. Such is the unforgiving effect time has on friendships: that it brings with it both the promise of deeper connection and the threat of inevitable decay.
Be it a slow drift away from each other, or a harsh split whose wounds still burn with fresh hurt, the loss of a relationship is never a sterile act. It’s neither selfish nor grossly immature to long for a different time, to let your mind drift to a relationship long gone or a time long past. But it’s essential to acknowledge the importance of that relationship, to thank it for all it has given, and still be able to let it go.
Because the nature of the tango life and death partake in is a cyclical one, meaning there will always be something that comes after decay: growth.
As humans, we are constantly picking up little pieces of each other, of our surroundings, of our experiences. That nervous habit of biting your lip picked up from an ex classmate; the almost magical studying technique introduced by a teacher; the very instinct to care for the people around you ignited by a compassionate friend long gone. Like perpendicular lines, your lives cross for a brief moment and never again, but long after those relationships end, you still carry with you a piece of that person. That brief flash is more than enough for a single notch to be made. It contributes to this constant growth, a never-ceasing hum of parts of us being sanded down and remoulded and re-shaped.
And I think that’s exactly what’s so cool about change— that it is this phenomenon born out of the culmination of decay and subsequently, growth.
Decay is an inevitable part of the process: you will definitely lose something, be it a part of yourself or a part of your world, and it leaves a void that takes time to heal. But equally as often, something new will come along to fill that space: something that helps you grow, that moulds you into a better person. Change pushes you into uncomfortable situations, into corners you never thought you were ready for. But that’s the point. It forces you to grow in areas you never dared to, to remain ever on your feet, never stagnant.
So the next time change comes hurtling your way, embrace it with open arms. For we are not designed to live permanently frozen in a state of clenched fists around things we are too afraid to give up— our hands are only as good as their ability to do things, and we are only as good as our ability to change.