Eid is in a few days. Exams just ended. Everyone around me is in a happy mood because there is no more waking up with the fear of long hours of studies and no more pretending you have everything under control when you absolutely do not.

The feelings after exams end are hard to explain. Almost like a heavyweight you’ve been carrying on your shoulders for months, which tripled in the past couple of weeks. Now, even when there is no weight on your shoulders, your brain is so confused that you still don’t accept the weight is gone. The peak of group chat discussions on assignments, questions and what the teacher said, with accurate answers, has suddenly ended. Now there are little jokes, ‘hi, hello’s or who’s going where and when? Who to join, etc.

The summer has already started, and it’s also the beginning of a long academic break where you do nothing specific; it’s officially the time to chill and relax before the next academic year begins. Except this time, it won’t be the same academic year for most of you who are passing out of school.

Everyone else will pile back in: new timetable, same complaints, same corridors. But you won’t be there. Many of you are waiting for admission letters. Some applying. Some still figuring it out. All scattered in different directions.

The end of exams usually brings relief. But for students leaving school, it also brings a flood of emotions: excitement, fear, nostalgia and the painful awareness that childhood is slowly slipping away

While everyone is now getting busy with Eid-related activities and making plans, you are somewhere in the middle of all that happiness, feeling weird. Perhaps an excitement for what the future holds, along with some anxiety and bittersweet feelings about leaving school life.

This is the first summer that feels like a conclusion and not a break. And you never knew how it would fall on you.

The farewell

Many of you will be preparing for the farewell: the dress, the speech, the skits. You’re excited and when the day actually comes, you’re having fun and then suddenly, your brain reminds you that this is the last time you are with everyone from your class/batch. After this day, everyone will go their own way. You take pictures, someone calls you, you share food, laughter and jokes.

That’s how the whole day goes. Happy, fun and filled with memorable activities, and then suddenly something tightens in your chest. The sensitive ones can’t hold it in. Once one person starts crying, it spreads: half the hall pretends not to cry with tears in their eyes, the other half just goes silent or ignores the heaviness.

The speeches happen. Teachers say genuinely nice things, and you think why didn’t they say this earlier? Someone from your batch says something funny, everyone laughs and then he says something serious at the end and the room goes quiet in that specific way where everyone is feeling the same thing at the same time.

But underneath all of it, even in the happy moments, something is holding your heart tight. It’s strange being at a party celebrating the end of something, while quietly terrified of what that end will look like on paper. You’re laughing in photos and mentally calculating percentages at the same time.

But sometimes friends make it easier. I remember, at my farewell, all of us friends were scared, all in the same boat and somehow that made the fear seem manageable.

While sitting there with them, I said, “I think I failed the MCQs,” and my best friend replied, “Same,” and we both just laughed; I still cannot forget that moment.

All these have become a memory, a beautiful yet nostalgic memory to me.

But the hardest part is the end of the farewell. Once you step out from the school or the venue, after the long hugs, warm goodbyes and “we’ll meet up soon” still echoing in your head, you get in the car and go home. That drive stings. Somewhere between the school gate and your home front door, it just feels painful, quietly and all at once. That was the farewell. It’s done now.

The teacher you never properly thanked

There’s always that one teacher everyone loves: funny, chill and the popular one. But in almost every school, there’s also that other one, the strict one you complained about constantly. The one whose class you dreaded, who gave the least marks and you dreaded her/his class.

I had a teacher like that. She never let anything slide. Wrong answer, she’d tell me straight; a little mistake, she handed back, saying, “Do it again!” No softening, no “good try,” just do it again.

At that time, I thought she didn’t like me. But that’s the thing about school: you think one way when you’re inside it and only understand it properly once you’ve left. When you step into the next phase, you start seeing your teachers differently, especially the strict ones.

I didn’t say anything to her at my farewell. I don’t know why. Maybe I didn’t have the words, maybe it felt weird to thank someone for being hard on you. But I wish I had. Because whatever is in me that handles pressure, sits with difficult things and doesn’t give up: some of that came from her class.

So if you’re in that situation right now, don’t waste the chance. Thank the teachers who were hard on you. In a couple of years, you’ll realise exactly how much they helped you become a better version of yourself.

The friends you’ll keep and the ones you’ll lose

Nobody says this at farewells, but everyone knows it. You will not stay close to everyone. The group of 12 that’s been together since O levels will slowly become a group of four or five that actually keeps in touch. Because life moves and people move, and maintaining things takes effort and not everyone is ready to give the same amount of effort in a relationship.

The ones who stay, you’ll know who they are. The ones where the friendship doesn’t need constant maintenance because it’s just solid underneath, even when you don’t talk regularly. Hold on to those.

What school actually taught you

The syllabus is already a blur for most of you. All those formulas, dates and definitions are gone or going. But other important things are now part of your personality.

The discipline, working within deadlines, sitting in a room with someone you don’t get along with and still getting your work done. Working in group projects with those who were difficult to deal with.

You also have learnt that friendship is not about having everything in common. My closest friend and I agree on almost nothing. We have different taste in everything. We argue constantly. But she helped every time I was wrong and that taught me more about how much sincerity and loyalty mean in a friendship.

I learnt that standing up for yourself is uncomfortable every single time. It is never easy. You still feel that nervousness in your chest. But if you do it anyway, then believe that you are strong enough to deal with pressure.

None of this is in any syllabus. None of this will be on any result. But this is what you will take with you in your life.

Lastly, if you’re reading this and you’re in the same place — just finished school, Eid approaching, results somewhere in the future and not knowing what comes next; know that the school years, even the most difficult ones, even the weeks and months you cried, failed at something or felt completely lost; they have shaped something good in you that you’ll only fully understand in the later years.

So cherish the moments with your fellows and cry if you really want to. Hug the people who mattered. Thank the teacher you never thanked.

Published in Dawn, Young World, May 16th, 2026