Quirkbag Collection #30 – 06.02.26
“High school is just a phase, it’ll be over quickly.”
That’s what your parents, high school graduates, distant relatives and that one kid from school says. And it’s true. But leaving the high school phase behind is one of those things that takes time to sink in. You don’t really “get it” until it’s over.
While I have left my high school phase behind for several years now, some parts of it occasionally fill my mind. Sure, there are moments of nostalgia. But more than that, I find that some wisdom emerges in due time from old experiences.
The Running Event
When I was 14, Hwa Chong Institution brought almost the whole high school out to Singapore Stadium (now known as The Kallang) to cheer for the National School Games’ Track and Field Finals.
As that task-oriented and priority-driven kid who hated deviating from work unnecessarily, I dreaded the mandatory attendance. It was eating up the free time of many reluctant 14 year olds. Of course, few of these kids thought about the opportunity costs (studying) like I did. While I had zero interest in the sport, the atmosphere was admittedly palpable when I saw history being made.
Image shot by a 14-year-old me with a phone
I did not understand the sport, nor why running was so popular. I had no idea why my classmates cheered enthusiastically for a random senior they have never met (nor will likely ever meet).
But I do distinctly remember seeing those 16 and 17 year old boys and girls run the fastest they could in the Finals. They were fully dedicated to the sport in the moment, running literally like their lives depended on it. Everyone was going for gold. Now thinking back, there’s something enigmatic about it.
Maybe there is no greater intrinsic purpose to their running apart from winning. Afterall, it’s just a 400m track.
But as I have come to realise, in time, the results rarely matter. We forget most scores and timings. But we do remember the feeling of being present in that moment, the spirit of being in competition and the emotional connection between the sport and athlete. It almost seems to make life vibrant for them. And more than anything, that is the crux of the high school phase. The spirit of just being. Though obviously, it’s harder than it sounds.
The High School Phase
My perspective on being an audience to the 2019 Finals has changed over the last 6 years. It was never about the individual. It was never about your life, specifically. And it’s not even about Track and Field.
But it has always been about the phase itself, of being in high school and having that teenage spirit. Watching the Finals was just a trigger for me, albeit a delayed one.
No athlete lives forever. No student stays an athlete forever. The Track and Field Finals happen annually, and if you’re really good, maybe you’ll compete 2 or 3 times for the school. But eventually, we graduate, leave this phase of life, and life goes on.
Your junior takes your place, just as you took your senior’s place. And if you cared to reflect about it, it’s like seeing your younger self in them. There is the cycle that you start and finish, where you’re neither the first nor the last.
Looking back at my 14 year old self, and those brave 16 and 17 year olds who gave their best and left it all on the field, that is perhaps the epitome of teenage spirit. For the athletes, it was ceaselessly competing purely for the sport to take pride in being in that phase.
Not everybody wins in sports. There is an apt and rather poetic line from one of my peer’s essays which I have always found to be etched in my mind. She wrote that (paraphrase mine) while there is honour in winning a gold medal, there is nobility in the boys and girls who are trying too.
Poignant Phase of Teen Spirit
If you were or are an athlete, the poignant part is knowing that of all the 16 and 17 year olds who compete every year, you were once one of them. Just as your seniors were and your juniors will. It’s about living that phase of your life for you because no one will remember those moments in the exact way that you will remember it.
Your life in that phase is as poignant as you make it to be, intentionally or not.
But the high school phase is not only about sports. Everyone has a different high school experience, and no two individuals feel the exact same way. In knowing that this is a phase that happens FOR you, as with other parts of life, you are free to live it and be in it for the purpose of living.
When The Phase Ends
But all things come to an end. You graduate, and the high school phase ends. You begin another phase in college, or at work. But something about that high school phase, that teenage spirit, never fades.
I imagine that’s one of the things grandparents or older seniors are describing when they say ‘it’s good to be young’ – a feeling of wistfulness that comes after closure and acceptance that your time in that phase is over. That or they’re thinking about how they have trouble climbing stairs now.
As someone who never competed in such intense finals before, my outside perspective of this phase is rather clear. It’s never really about the sport. It’s about living in the high school phase. Your phase of life, that you won’t get back.
Leaving this strange, emotionally riddled and unique phase of life can be difficult. Sometimes all our self-worth is tied to it because that environment is where we grew up as teenagers. But it’s truly the case that no matter how awesome or undesirable the phase, we ALL leave it one day.
Ironically, when I was a high school student, I did not see how this was a phase that happened for us. I did not realise how those boys and girls were just living in their phase of life while I lived in mine. But that’s okay.
Perhaps that is part of life, to truly see the phase with clarity (and wisdom) only after it ends. And for some reason, it leads me to better appreciate the spirit of youth and embrace the future phases in life that await.
Before leaving the phase, high school or not, we owe it to ourselves to live in it.
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