The structure of the modern school year doesn't prepare you for life. In life after school, there are no graduations, no summer vacations, no studying for exams, perfecting papers, pulling all-nighters to pass tests. Okay, maybe there are, but most of these things are self-administered, self-scheduled. You pass or fail according to your own rules and standards. I was a relatively good student, adept at jumping through the hoops that others placed in front of me. I was an eager cog, not an entirely unreflective tool, but what else was there to do back then but pass tests, write papers. The markers of semester, final, end-of-year were reassuring. I never quite cultivated the ability to self-soothe, and so at 30, I am finally learning. I needed reassurances. I needed narratives to fall back on. I needed safety, assurance, control.

I don't pass some of my own tests now. I sometimes put off studying. There's no sense of safety in arbitrary patterns, in comparing your history to someone elses. Besides, these life comparisons are something school girls engage in and the irony of life is that I went from being a stellar school girl to a not-so-competant woman. Again, only by my own standards. I spent a long time looking for bread crumb trails to no avail. I know no one is out there to give me a gold star or to flunk me. I never knew what I would do with the freedom of being an adult, and I'm not sure I do even now.