A little note before we begin…
To everyone collecting results today: however it has gone, whatever you’re feeling, remember that the path could be straight or there may be a bit more sightseeing along the way but either way, today brings you one step closer to where you want to be.
This post isn’t really about A-level results, it’s about what they represented to me for a (very!) long time.

If you’re 18, this is probably one of the biggest days of your life so far. Months (years really!) of work have all lead up to opening a single envelope and maybe trying desperately not to give your breakfast a second viewing while you wait to find out what comes next. But this isn’t an inspirational post about collecting results or what to do if things don’t go as planned. You’ve had all that already on every other page on the internet today. Nope, this is a post about watching everyone else collect theirs for a loooong time.

Since the people I went to school with were opening their own A-level envelopes (in the early 2000s *insert shocked face here*), I remember feeling a tiny little pang every August. Not jealousy. Not even regret exactly. Just a kind of “hmmm, results day” awareness, I suppose. Not going to claim it was even remotely logical. I’d left school with purpose and intention. I’d built a decent career in retail, got married, had children, bought a house and generally just got on with being a grown up. Life had moved on… hadn’t it? And yet, every August something about Results Day would make me have that little “I should have done that” moment.

Then there were the local FE college prospectuses. Every year, without fail, they arrive through the letterbox, and for most people – next stop, recycling bin. But not for me. Oh no! I’d set aside some time, boil the kettle and kick back and peruse this years offerings. Every. Year. It was a bit of a running joke in our house. “What are we studying this year?” There were lots of options: Recreational Pottery? People Management? Photography? Construction?

I had a giggle at all the things fictional me was set to become, finished my tea and chucked the little newspaper in the recycling bin. Apparently my subconscious had been making five-year plans without bothering to tell the rest of me though, because looking back, I guess I wasn’t really joking. Not completely. I wasn’t looking for a specific course all those years, I wasn’t even really looking for ANY course. The time just wasn’t right. But what all that browsing and imagining the ‘me’s of different worlds did was give me permission to believe that going back wasn’t something I’d missed the chance to do forever. Every August those pesky prospectuses reminded me that the FE colleges were still there, courses were still running and oldies like me were still learning. Maybe…

It’s funny how things work out… For years I watched Results Day from the sidelines, read the prospectuses, quietly imagined a whole host of different ‘me’s without once really believing any of them would ever actually make their way to the real world. This year hits differently though. This year, I’m not wondering what’s next. I’m actually doing it. I might not be waiting on A-level results, but I’m right on the edge, about to take that next step into the unknown that presents itself this time every year.  The FE College prospectus arrived a few days ago and I don’t need to imagine the alternate universes any more, but I had a flick through anyway. I mean, how could I not when the headline on the front was “Rethinking the Traditional Pathway”?