Sometimes I Cry: A Cry Towards Victory

I think we can all agree that school is not always our friend and that with the rise of social media, one can’t help but compare oneself with the success of our peers. As a result of this, sometimes I cry. 

I used to be a straight A student, I went to band rehearsals—that reached anywhere between six to eighteen hours a week—and stayed up until ungodly hours finishing homework. That girl was fearless and terrified, an idiot and a genius. Now I am just a terrified idiot. 

As you know, it is November and that means it is that time of year where all of us start to feel the burn out. Assignments are being turned in late, if at all. Students wake up later, we don’t change out of our clothes in the morning. But the thing is, this year is very different.

Because of online school, many of us haven’t been waking up an hour before school the way we usually would have. Many of us don’t change out of our sleeping clothes and some of us even do our zoom calls from bed. This is not necessarily a bad thing, but I do think it has made the burn out come sooner. 

It also doesn’t help that everywhere we look there’s a video on YouTube or Instagram about “how to look better on Zoom,” or “how to survive online school,” or “how to feel good when you’re in quarantine.” The truth is we’ve been doing this long enough to know no video is going to truly help. It was cool at first when this was new and low-key exciting, but now it’s depressing. It doesn’t help to see how everyone around us is constantly doing better than we are, and in a way it feels as if many of these influencers have romanticized a pandemic that has caused many families heart-break. 

As I said, I used to be a straight A student with lots of ambition. Last year that changed along with many more things in my life and I became an average student. I changed my perspective and I realized school is a game I was once really good at. 

I moved all the pieces correctly and called checkmate, thinking there was an endgame. I thought if I just got to the end of this mindnumbing torture, there would be a reward waiting for me at the end, but the reward is not given. It’s earned. And oftentimes the reward isn’t what we think it is. The game doesn’t guarantee success, just knowledge, and we’re so busy trying to move the pieces, we forget to hold on to that knowledge. 

Sometimes I forget about this profound realization: the realization that I can still have knowledge without having an A. After all, would you get anything lower than grade A beef? 

My name is Victoria, meaning victory, and when I think of the last two years of my life I often feel like I haven’t earned my name and its meaning. I don’t feel like a victor. I know deep down this is a culmination of fear, doubt, and internalized hate. Nevertheless, it doesn’t stop my demons from telling me I’m not good enough.That feeling doesn’t last long, but these days I feel it more frequently. 

Sometimes I cry because I’m afraid I no longer have the drive or the courage to go forth with my dreams and my passions. Sometimes I cry because I feel like I’ll be stuck here forever. But crying is good. Crying means I still care to win the game. Crying means I can wipe my face and try again and maybe someday feel victorious again.