Things I blame boarding school for

I remember having a conversation with Mabel last year. I barely remember what it was about, but she said to me, “You can’t blame boarding school for everything”. And I hear that. We are too old to be blaming our behaviour on our upbringing; boarding school counts as upbringing, right? Despite this, there are ways it shows up in our lives everyday. For context, I was in boarding school from the time I was 9 years old until I was 16. So those are my formative years and it would be imprudent to pretend they didn’t, in one or another, shape the way I turned out. I’m not in therapy anymore so shall we unpack them here:

1. MY SENSE OF URGENCY IS UNMATCHED
   Listen, I am always in a hurry. Everything in my life is on a clock. When you spend years having your life dictated by a bell or whistle, you have no choice but to always be conscious of time. As a result, I don’t understand tardiness. It doesn’t make me mad, I just cannot fathom it. How are you late? How do you not know to get places on time? Awujahanga ngani? Like, I need you to move!
   
2. MY INDEPENDENCE
   So you learn independence pretty quickly. You learn to take care of yourself, you learn to get yourself out of messes. You also become very solutions-driven. Because there wasn’t always a parent around to swoop in and save you. And in cases where there was an adult around, they also had to take care of a hundred other kids. So you learn to look to yourself for solutions. To this day, when you see me ask for help, please please believe it is because I am at my wits end. Sengiphelelwe guys.
   
3. MY CODEPENDENCE
   On the flip side of independence is the codependence that you develop. Especially with the people that you are in boarding school with. Some might call it a trauma bond but the bond that you have with the people you survive boarding school with is insane. I met my #bff when I was 12 and I have stuck to that girl since! We practically raised each other. And I am not being dramatic when I say I don’t know what my life would look like if she wasn’t in it.
   
4. TIME AND RESOURCE MANAGEMENT
   I didn’t realise just how organised I was until I saw how much less organised a lot of people were. Mind you, I don’t mean organised as in neat (nope, that is the one thing boarding school failed to teach me). By organised I mean I manage my time, schedule and tasks impeccably. Everything is scheduled in boarding school, even bathroom breaks (I kid you not). So I got used to that early. Everything of mine is scheduled. I have a to-do list. I have a do-ing list. I have a done list. It’s part of why I think I make a decent producer.
   
5. I HAD TO DEVELOP A PERSONALITY
   I didn’t grow up pretty. And I knew it. Pretty happened late, guys! Probably around third year of college is when I had my ugly duckling turns into a swan really happy goose moment. And until that moment, I had to have something. In primary school, that was easy, I defaulted to being the smart one, cool. Then I moved to John Tallach and smart didn’t cut it anymore. That school is always in the top ten performing schools in the country. Nobody cares that you’re smart, because everyone is smart! I had no choice but to develop a personality. Get some funny, add a little creativity, a little smart mouth. put some gossip for control, a little rebellion…these are currency in boarding school!
   
6. I KNOW HOW TO GET OUT OF TROUBLE
   Punishment was always greater than the crime. I will never forget the day we had to spend the day we spent literally beating a rock because we had done a beat on a dining hall table. I remember more than once I was punished for rolling my eyes. They called the offence “body language” (it doesn’t say cousin there by boarding). But when you live in a world where everything is punishable, you learn to hide your mistakes well to avoid consequence. Even now, when I make a mistake or when I mess up, my instinct is to quickly fix it before anyone realises a mistake has been made.
   
7. I. DO. NOT. WANT. TO. SEE. ISITSHWALA!
   By all means, keep it away from me. Words cannot express how much I dislike isitshwala. I ate too much of it and angisekho lapho. We would have it EVERYDAY for lunch AND supper at my primary school then either for lunch or supper at my secondary school. Angisifuni. I am so committed to not eating sitshwala that I actively decided not to learn how to make it. And I never will. That is my rebellion. I have earned it.
   

This list could be longer but I don’t have the time to go through everything. Neither do you. But this was prompted by an instagram post I saw a couple of weeks ago and it made me think about how boarding school still manifests, subtly or otherwise in my life.

I am interested to know if I am the only one who feels this way. What parts of you were shaped by boarding school?