White lace dress, Monki. Black leather belt, Gina Tricot. Grey knitted socks, Lindex. Black leather litas, Jeffrey Campbell, Solestruck.com. Lipstick: 846 "Raging Ruby" by Max Factor.
Next week, it's time for our Swedish high school students to graduate. The event is called studenten, and it's tradition for girls to wear white (the guys are ususally wearing black suits). Sure, it might have been nine years since my high school graduation - but that doesn't mean I can't pretend I'm still 18 and have my whole life ahead of me!
When I graduated, I wore an off-white dress I'd thrifted the day before. I can't remember ever seeing it in my wardrobe, so I guess someone must have spilled red wine all over it or something. Oh, and I was barefoot - I bought some two dollar shoes at the same charity shop, but I think my feet hurt and I left them somewhere even before the ceremony started. I've never seen any photos from my graduation - the fancy but affordable DSLR cameras had not yet entered the market. If I'd have graduated today, I would probably have taken about five thousand photos!
The weeks before my graduation were such a disaster. You see, up unitl the end of "högstadiet" (junior high, sort of), I was completely obsessed with my grades. I mean it: completely obsessed. If I missed one single point at a test, I would run off to the school bathroom and cry. I was the biggest geek you've ever seen and, looking back, the pressure I put on myself was absolutely ridiculous. My parents had nothing to do with it, even though of course I wanted to make them proud, but it was me and noone else who expected me to be the best in every single subject.
Naturally, everyone loathed me. It truly was a vicious cycle - I'd been bullied ever since I started school at six years old, and I figured my only value as a person was to get perfect grades. And the more obsessed I got about my studies, the more reason people felt like they had to torture me.
Well, that all changed. The summer between junior high and high school, I decided to undergo a total tranformation. An extreme makeover, if you so wish. I was going to go to a very advanced, well respected high school where noone knew me - I had a shot at becoming somebody else, "the person I was supposed to be".
My plan was this: I would be the really smart, really pretty girl who wore nice clothes and hung out with the cool kids. Basically: I would still put all the pressure of being number 1 in my class on myself, as well as being the prettiest, skinniest, most popular girl. You think that worked out well for me? Well, I'll tell you one thing: when you stop eating entirely, there's no way you can be at the top of your game. No way in hell.
To make a long story short: I tried, I really did. But I got way too sick, I decided to transfer to a school with a lot lower academic standards, I started wearing all black, I cut class to do modeling gigs more often than I actually showed up in school. The summer after my first year of high school, I had to go take summer classes for six weeks just to go on to the next grade. I WAS A MESS. And this didn't change. About a month before my graduation, one of my teachers told me I was failing so many classes that they weren't going to let me graduate. That was a new low, even for me.
I might have had the attitude of a total screw-up, but luckily I still had the brains of the geek I used to be. I studied like a lunatic the last couple of weeks - and managed to not only pass all the classes I needed to, but to get all A's and B's. So when I finally got to graduate with the rest of my class, it was such a double win. I didn't only get to leave high school with decent grades, I'd also restored my faith in myself, in my own capacity and compentence. I left high school with the feeling that I could do anything, as long as I really gave it my all.
Then I still screwed up again and again, living way too close to the edge for another three years, before I actually got my act together. But that's a whole different story. And I did end up with a job I enjoy, reasonably healthy and happy in a beautiful house with the man I love. Not that this is the end - I try to see every day as the chance to a new beginning. Because I know it's never, ever too late to change your life.
"Everything will be okay in the end. If it's not okay, it's not the end."
