Memories of A Girl

The Beginning

ANASTASIA

I was never meant to remember. I was never supposed to have buried deep in my subconsciousness the list that would change everything I ever knew. If I never remembered everyone would be far safer but what happened was always bound to happen and I had just sped up the whole process. I gave myself and everybody else far less time to deal with everything because I remembered what I was never supposed to and for that reason alone, I will be forever feel guilty.

I was sat at my desk, on January 1st the start of a new year thinking. Seeing the light of my laptop and the presence of my fig tree. Many mood and vision boards are on the walls around me, made when bursts of creativity ran through my body. I always held a strong belief within me that greatness is my fate but finding how exactly to reach this goal remains a real challenge. And as a new year began that spark of creativity had begun again.

While I looked upon my orchard of figs, I was faced with a difficult choice. A choice I always knew I had to make but I had never thought about how I would do it. Similar to picking a fig from tree to taste its sweetness, I found myself selecting which pathway in life should be pursued. Every direction presented a thrilling future, making the decision even more challenging. In the midst of uncertainty, I enjoyed the large number of possibilities that waited for me. It created a dilemma where I had to select from various sweet fruits of my dreams. In the scene showing possible futures, I saw myself in front of eight different figs. Each one was a symbol for a role that could be part of my life: lawyer, writer, actress, anaesthesiologist or neurosurgeon; pharmacist; politician and mother were among them. The strength of my look changed from one figurative fruit to another as I moved my sight around those numerous options set up ahead me like an attractive pathway.

For more clarity, I tried to reduce my choices. My goal was to make the range come down to two possible paths at least. When I thought about giving up science at A-Level, it cut out three options and only made a group of five things left for thinking over. Law appeared as the best one and most intellectually inspiring choice because it's an area of study that my logical mind is attracted towards. Writing, tied to the longings of my heart, was a tempting path for me. But I saw it as a luxury that I couldn't afford. Acting felt like living out my dreams, but there appeared to be societal rules which made this passion seem less serious. The puzzle began unfolding in front of me; it was a subtle tussle between practical thinking and an ache for satisfaction as I struggled with the difficulty of identifying my path against society's anticipations. Arguably I shouldn't care about what society thought because society thought a lot of things that I didn't agree with but society to an extent included my parents and I couldn't let them down, there's only one of me.

Stepping away from thinking about my possible futures, for a while I got caught up with the copy of Macbeth that was open in front of me - it's my duty to read this literature, that's how my dad would always put it, but I didn't really want to fulfil my "duty". I wanted to know what I was doing with my life so I could sleep in peace at night. But, the graphical figs drew me back again into laptop's bright light where pathways of my hopes and dreams were ready for exploration.

I understood that doing well in my GCSEs and A-Levels were like keys needed to open the door towards my planned future. The importance of time was heavy, realizing how close we are getting to year 11. In several months, I will be standing at the crossroads of decision making where I have to choose which A-Level subjects are going shape not only my academic path but also influence what lies ahead for me. The seriousness of these decisions was more than just about my study results, as they were linked to which university I would go and had an impact on the direction of my life. While dealing with the stress from upcoming choices, I couldn't avoid noticing that my shots at life depended on numbers which awaited me during GCSE results day. The delicate dance between academic accomplishments and the chase for dreams became a real power, moulding how my journey story would be and making every choice I was going to select more important.