Navigating Life After UWC

In UWC, we talk about empowerment a lot. At times, it felt like a buzzword for putting someone up on a pedestal. In classrooms or workshops surrounding this concept, speakers often bring in its benefits, ways to transfer power to the disempowered, i.e., the target audiences of numerous services within UWC. What this leaves us with is the mentality that we are ‘saviors’ in charge of lifting other people up from the shadows and into the light. While this created an air of entitlement in some, it also put a lot of pressure on me to be the caring older sister of the boarding house. Of course, this was a personal choice. For as long as I had known, I have always been an older sister. It gives me a lot of joy to focus on my younger siblings as opposed to my own inner demons. When I came to UWC, even though I had the freedom to be a young, stupid teenager who made mistakes every once in a while, it was not long until I found people in younger grades who saw me as an older sister. This greatly empowered me to keep doing what I was doing, with great compassion and determination to make Tampines house feel like a home.

It has been 18 days since I have left the boarding house and memories cling to me like my best friend’s detergent on his hoodie that I stole. I wish I could say that it has been easy, moving back to my home country and settling in with my family. However, the truth is that it is complicated and messy. While carrying my 30 kilos worth of my belongings, my own hopes and fears settled in the pit of my stomach, a heavy feeling in my chest. What I did not know was that my family was feeling the same. And these do not necessarily come up in casual conversation or even through the hugs and tears. Sometimes it just explodes. Which is exactly what happened. With this came a lot of realizations regarding how I want to approach my gap year. What was initially a time to slow down and gain perspective before heading on to university, became a time of healing and reconnecting with my roots.

I blamed myself so much for not being able to secure a scholarship like so many of my peers in the boarding house. I blamed it on my indecision, my lack of appreciation for the United States, my desire to search for unconventional paths, and so many of my personal attributes. I attacked myself mercilessly to counter the guilt of being cushioned by my family. I stripped myself of my confidence and this identity I created in UWC with rumination and irrational thoughts. After a few vulnerable conversations, both with friends from UWC, my new coworkers at my national committee, and my family, I came to the conclusion that hurting myself was not going to bring me any closer to my dreams. In fact, continuing to do so would be detrimental to my gap year and my mental health. Disempowering myself would not help me empower others. Do you know the saying, “Put on your oxygen mask, before assisting others?” I had become so fixated on my goals of helping other people that I essentially forgot my own oxygen mask. I forgot to breathe. So now I have time to breathe. To take in a gulp of air and savor it. If I am honest, things went by with so much speed and intensity in the boarding house from making the most out of the experience, that we were all left breathless. And I am not saying that it is a bad thing, however, it is important to be aware of how you can help yourself when things are moving too fast.

Empowering myself did not start with pep talks about how I can become a changemaker in this world. It starts with taking a few deep breaths after noticing that my inhales and exhales have become shallow. Afterwards, I check in with myself, see how my body is feeling at that moment. If I feel tension in my neck, my back, and my hips, I stretch and take in everything around me. I remind myself that I am safe. I try to get a hold of my thoughts, interviewing each one before they pass: “Is this true?”. If it is, I let it pass. If not, I try to dig deep into its origins, and when it does not serve me, I let it go with an exhale. Though if I am being truly candid, this line of questioning is often not as binary or clear as to why certain thoughts stick around in my head. Writing helps, though. Empowering myself started from the simple belief that I am capable of waking up in the morning with gratitude in my heart. Though emotions will rise and fall like the tide, as it does in the wake of a magnificent wave such as my UWC journey, I know for sure that I will continue to bring light to those surrounding me, be it strangers ten years from now, my corridor mates, an odd houseparent or two, perhaps even Zola, Willa, and Etta. Thank you so much, Tampines House. Be kind to yourselves.

Much love and light,

Amanda

18 June 2021