Rewriting A Different Story

When I walked out of the school gates at the age of eighteen, I never thought I would ever step foot back again. 

Some people experienced school as one of the happiest times of their lives. For me, it was anguished and tortured. It was not my proudest era. I was mostly miserable and a mess. Sometimes I acted like the class clown to hide the overwhelming sadness I masked.

Like many of us, school was an escape from the turbulence no one knew about.  But I never felt like I quite belonged. I was the unsporty, unacademic one in an extremely sporty and academic family. I questioned why I was so different. I was the odd one. Withdrawn and complex. Funny at times. Miserable at other times. Emotional eating took its toll. I ate my anguish, and my troubled skin reflected that,  plastered in Clearasil. 

Not my shining era.

But it was my small group of close friends that got me through high school.

So, when, decades later, a reunion at the school was organised, it was only because of the people who volunteered to make it possible that I had the courage to walk through those school gates again. I was walking through those gates because of those who had walked beside me. In friendship. They helped me survive high school. I was there to honour them. 

It was with some trepidation that I learned that one of the teachers would be attending and that it would be held in one of the school halls. I had buried so many memories. Would it open fresh wounds? Would it bring back that sense of worthlessness that had buried me? 

The run-up to the reunion was cathartic. People in the group shared challenges that they had been through. Many others had battled. Many also did not feel it was their happiest era. Suddenly, we were all bonding in a shared humility, in a shared rite of passage, and in a shared era of greater healing and understanding. 

The day arrived last weekend. I walked through those school gates as a woman quite different from the one who had left, so tortured with self-doubt and the anguish of what everybody might think. A constant cacophony in my head. 

I had finally found my stride only in my sixties. As an entrepreneur for over 20 years, I have always battled imposter syndrome. I had found my true identity as a writer.

As a vulnerable storyteller.  And occasionally, as a speaker. It felt as if, finally, this was why I came to earth. To give others the courage to tell their stories. It was no longer about my story. It was about our story. The story of this remarkable country and the history we are still living in. 

When I learned that the English teacher would be attending, I was even more shocked. 

She had instilled in me a love of language, a love of words, and a love of storytelling, both through books and through movies, visual stories. 

Judith, my English teacher, stood up at this momentous event and gave a profound speech, not just about life and teaching, but about the deeper philosophy of why our lives matter, why our stories matter. It was profoundly humbling. She spoke about living in curiosity and about travelling to 52 countries as an eternal student of lifelong learning. At the end of her speech, she gave each of her learners there a copy of her speech along with a personal handwritten note. It was extraordinary. It was a moment. A moment of both reverence and reckoning. 

I realised how privileged I was not just to have attended a school such as this, but also in how much certain teachers had shaped my life. Judith Gordon was one of those. 

For thirty years before this, I had carried the shame of letting people down as a political activist in my twenties. I walked stooped in shame. On the surface, I was winning awards with my teams as an entrepreneur. But deep down, the shame lingered, and one deep scratch would unearth those old wounds.

It was the speaker community that gave me the courage to start telling my story.

I only started to tell the true story of my past in my sixties. It was both deeply vulnerable and deeply healing. It helped me join the dots backwards. I am only now fully understanding the passages of my life. 

One of the organisers of the school reunion had been a lifeline at school. She encouraged me to rewrite my story more deeply.

The main speaker at the reunion was a dear classmate who had dealt with so many hard blows in her life. She was a double amputee in a wheelchair, never complaining. Always helping other people. Her speech was a moving testimony to the human spirit.  It was a sobering and deeply humbling reflection. She spoke beautifully about the eras we had lived through, this generation of change. 

Her words made us metaphorically look in the mirror at what truly matters. 

In the final evocation of a school living in an era of transformation, the new principal, Michael Gates, spoke about his passion for transformation. His passion for education and his passion for empowering young leaders to make a difference in this country. His message was humble, unassuming, and deeply honouring of the school. 

He celebrated not just the high achievers, but those who achieved against all odds. 

As I walked around the school, I saw messages on the walls that all centred on belonging. The new school song was sung by a wonderful small choir in English, isiXhosa and Afrikaans.

The new words are testament to a new era, new values, new hope, and a compassion centred at the heart of this school reunion. 

This reunion was more than a trip down memory lane. It was a celebration of rewriting our collective history. 

It was a celebration of an era that shaped us. It was a celebration of belonging. 

I walked out of those gates last Saturday morning, so grateful for the courage to hear a new song, to be part of writing a new story. A story I am still writing.

What story are you rewriting?