Bask in the absence of stress for now

As Leaving Cert result day nears, Shane McDonnell, who was at the Westmeath Examiner on two weeks’ work experience, muses on what it has meant, means and will mean for people of his age

The Leaving Certificate was, is, and always will be a stressful period in life.

Everyone who has it finished remembers the sleepless nights, and I hear the complaint quite often of people returning to their exam rooms in the realms of sleep, re-sitting the tests without knowledge of the subjects.

I almost envy the people who have yet to experience the pain of the Leaving, my only consolation being that they eventually will.

Having recently finished the Leaving, I can look back at the year fondly, easily recalling the first time I got stressed – on my first day of my final year of school, the whole year with the big bad exams looming, casting a shadow over my existence.

I remember wondering if it was possible to just not do it.

But you quickly settle into the routine of things, it becomes just another school year. Except for every teacher in the school constantly drilling into you how important it all is and informing you of how little time you have left; so much so that you begin to realise you spend more time discussing how little time you have and how to spend that time than putting it to use.

In time, you begin to hate the Leaving Cert and all it represents. You want to quit and take up a modest life of jam-making, but your bleeping parents won’t let you.

So you persevere. You gorge on what information you can. I garnered a mild tea addiction over the course of the year, trying to keep myself from passing out from unadulterated boredom.

But you don’t feel the time going by, each day the same as the last, the only difference your teachers’ description of how many days you have left and the sense of dread in your fellow students.

Then suddenly you’re in the thick of it, and it’s not as heart breaking as you thought it would be. You come home every evening with a mild sense of pride and a nearly broken hand.

Suddenly you are 10 minutes from finishing the last exam of your secondary school education and you’re wondering where the time went. The examiner calls for pens to be removed from paper and you grudgingly comply. You walk out of the room and it’s finally over, a wave of relief, euphoria and excitement washes over you.

You’re free!

That is, until you realise you’re not. The days quickly grind to a halt as you no longer have anything to occupy your time in a meaningful way. It is a hard anti-climax that five years of your life are neatly squared away, now just memories, and you are stuck in what feels like eternal limbo until your results arrive.

You can have zero definite plans for your future until then. Some of us revel in this, some find jobs and some reminisce about their time in school, forgetting all the stress and the bad times, only remembering the fun times.

Those of us who don’t spend our time in the past must turn to the future, a more terrifying concept. Especially now. We all have our plans and desires, whether our dream university, an apprenticeship, or even a job requiring a Leaving Cert and not a degree.

Yet all of these aspirations are balanced on tenterhooks, depending on our Leaving Cert performance.

So all you can really do is ignore the looming decisions and the monumental change, and bask in the absence of responsibility and stress you are allowed until university, work or whatever you have planned.

It’s probably one of your last chances to do so.

Next year you’re alone and an adult, in nearly all aspects of the word, like a trial period of being an adult, easing your toes into the water before taking the dive.

Just try to forget the fact you ever sat a Leaving Certificate exam and you won’t ever be bothered by the stress of it ever again.