Laughter and tears of Leaving Cert results day
‘My main feeling was relief that it was all over’
THE early part of this week was categorised by a sense of nervous anticipation that percolated through the background of everything. The countdown to Leaving Cert results day was under way and I think it was possibly worse than the build-up to the exams themselves.
Yes, many of you may remember back in May when I talked a lot about the stress before the Leaving — well I’m not sure that wasn’t a bit easier than the gut-wrenching anxiety of this week — waiting for, and then ultimately watching your beloved child get their exam results.
The only possibly comparable fear was him heading off to balcony-infested Magaluf with his pals.
There is a strange road you walk with your older adolescent children. You recognise that you cannot do everything for them. You know there are important lessons to be learnt from challenges, even daunting ones.
You know responsibility and understanding consequences are part of growing up. And your rational head knows they have to go through this because every kid in the country does it.
But that doesn’t change the fact that you wish you could in some way insulate them from it all. And, of course, you are filled with a desperate longing for it to have gone well.
I woke early on Wednesday feeling faintly sick and wanting to get to school the minute it was open, to put all of us out of our misery. I have no idea now, how I stayed in bed until 12 noon on the morning of my own Leaving results, and strolled into the school around lunchtime missing all the crowds, because I couldn’t sleep a wink beyond 6am for the young fella’s turn!
There were, of course, the expected laughter and tears around the country on the day as students got a mark that apparently summed up the course of their 14 years thus far in education. Many people seemed pleased. Some felt they had punched above their weight.
Others looked like they were attempting to put a brave face on it. For some it may well have been the first taste of real disappointment. My main feeling was relief that it was all over.
In a funny way, despite all the hype, despite all the pressure, despite all the column inches, all the talk, I actually don’t think it really matters what you get in the Leaving Cert, to be honest. It is a footnote in people’s lives and nothing more than a stepping stone to the next chapter.
Irrespective of what you got, you can still do whatever you want — where there is a will there is absolutely a way.
There are back doors into courses. You can do different studies as a mature student. You can travel. You can repeat. And you can ask yourself if that specific course that you had your heart set on is really the only route to your chosen career? And, maybe more importantly, you can reassess — sometimes, what isn’t for us passes us by.
I did commerce when I left school. I chose it and I got into it. And I hated it. I went back to college after it and did medicine. That suited me and I thrived, but ultimately I have ended up as a newspaper columnist and a radio broadcaster. I never even put journalism or communications or media studies down on the CAO — but that’s how life goes.
It isn’t linear. It’s circuitous. And sometimes the twists and turns along the way are the best bits.
We don’t always know what we want at 18 (or 38 for that matter) let alone have the wherewithal to achieve it. The Leaving Cert is a blunt instrument — and a fairly brutal one too.
Whatever you got in it will cease to matter or even be remembered in a few years time. And yes this week, when the offers are made, some people will feel they have missed out — but equally, the path you walk on from here is not the destination, it’s the starting point.
Every day for the rest of your life you will tweak the direction you travel and I have no doubt that wherever you want to go — if you want it enough — you will get there.
Well done class of 2018. I salute you! You survived and so did your parents! @ciarakellydoc Ciara presents ‘Lunchtime Live’ on Newstalk. weekdays 12-2