Diary of an Ex-Honor Student

No one is born an honor student. I wonder when 'honor student' became my defining label.

***

There is always one 'good kid' in every class or grade. A student who does well in their studies, handles sports reasonably well, is pleasant to be around, and is trusted by both teachers and friends. I hate to say it myself, but I was exactly that kind of student. I grew up being told I was an honor student, a good kid, and I knew no other way to live.

However, today, I live a life free enough that I show up to work with blonde hair, surprising my business partners. The past where I sought to fit into a mold, and the present where I move forward to break common sense. Both are me, but I think I like myself better now.

It’s not that I was being oppressed, nor was everything about being an honor student painful. In fact, because I had the stable trust of both teachers and friends, people would interpret things in my favor if I did something minor. I lived efficiently, and I think I had a sense of superiority in getting things to go my way. (My personality might have gotten worse.)

In exchange, what I had to take on was the loneliness of not knowing how to be childish. Is there anyone who understands the real, more selfish me? Am I being exploited? Am I really on equal footing and part of the circle? I began to feel lonely even when I was with others.

Perhaps I spent too much time around adults rather than my peers when I was young. Prioritizing being a good kid who adults liked over building relationships with friends. That order of priorities and behavior became so ingrained that it eventually hardened me to the point where I couldn't take myself out of the mold. I didn't realize it at the time, though.

This is a record of how I became an honor student, what I thought about during my adolescence, what I struggled with, and what I enjoyed. And what triggered me to start valuing my own thoughts over being the person who meets someone else's expectations.

***

April 15, 2004
A light blue skirt with a white petal print. As an elementary school student whose backpack was still bigger than her body, I wore white socks that looked like they were for a recital. (Thinking back now, those were all hand-me-downs from my cousins or clothes my mother used to wear. That might be why they were a bit outdated and made me stand out.)

This was an era when classmates started wearing clothes with skulls or English prints, and 'Shunsoku' sneakers were all the rage. I was surprised by my classmates just for coming to school in denim.

By the second grade of elementary school, I could only speak in polite language. I was supposed to be a normal, quiet girl who liked drawing and was bad at dodgeball, but I became a mismatched elementary student who spoke to friends using 'desu' and 'masu'.

I still can't remember why that happened. When I got home, I spoke normally. Even in the extracurricular activities I had been in since kindergarten, I didn't use polite language.

But there were definitely moments like that. My classmates called me by my surname with a 'san' suffix, and the only person I can still call a friend today is the girl who transferred in during the second grade—a girl who was quick to fight and wrote with round, bubbly letters.

May 30, 2006
The door to the elementary school classroom was made of brown wood and made a rattling sound. When the front door opened modestly during the morning assembly, my homeroom teacher called my name with a surprised look on their face.

It was my mother who opened the door. In the teacher's hand was a gym clothes bag received from my mother. Today was Sports Day.

I stood up with my head down, wearing someone else's wrinkled gym clothes that I had pulled out of the lost-and-found box. I had stolen them from the box that was carelessly placed in front of the shoe lockers.

It’s no wonder the teacher was surprised. I never forgot things, yet here was a serious-looking kid who had forgotten her gym clothes on the day of the Sports Day. And to cover it up, that kid was wearing muddy gym clothes that she didn't even know who had lost or when. The eldest of three sisters always has to be a 'reliable good kid.' By that time, I had already started hiding my failures.

October 5, 2007
"Your sister's drawings are so dynamic."

I have been drawing since before I can remember. My grandmother, who praised everything I did, was an artist herself. She always saved the blank backs of flyers for me and kept the pictures I drew with great care.

So, even though I was the one who had always been praised, I only layered pale colors, using watercolors so thin that the paper would peel.

My six-year-old sister would boldly apply the oil paints I couldn't use well onto the canvas. Vibrant yellows, reds, and oranges. Fruits stared at with fearless, direct eyes. My sister's drawings had no hesitation, and she wasn't trying to be liked by anyone.

I liked her drawings much more than my own. I couldn't beat my sister. Little by little, I drifted away from the art I once loved. I wasn't strong enough to keep loving something that wasn't recognized.

April 9, 2009
Instead of entering a private middle school, my father ordered me to join a sports club. My parents never once told me to study hard. Instead, worried about their daughter who hated sports and lacked social skills, my father made me promise to do so.

Eighty percent of the reason I took the middle school entrance exam and chose that specific school was because my mother told me to. Back then, and even now, I have no complaints. I think I was lucky to have a positive personality that doesn't regret what has happened. I believe this is undoubtedly because my parents raised me with affirmation.

In middle school, I joined the hard tennis club as told. During the trial period, I didn't even touch a ball, just ran and ran. Because I hate losing, I got stubborn and kept at it. In middle school, the formal language disappeared, and I started making more friends in the sports club.

June 30, 2009
The first midterm exam. My grades were slightly above average. And I learned that in an all-girls school, it's not a world where you can rely on being smarter than boys or get help by acting helpless.

Maybe it's okay to do what I want. The formal language was gone, and as I started making friends in class, I threw myself into club activities as if to repaint myself.

July 1, 2010
The girl who sat next to me based on the attendance list asked me to show her my score. The first test after the class reshuffle. She showed me her score, too. It's a competition, then. For the next year, we studied as if we were constantly competing.

That was when I realized: regular tests only cover what you've studied, right? So, I just need to memorize the entire test range.

Actually, until I graduated from high school, I memorized every single word on every page of my notebooks before the exams. That said, my priority was club activities, so I searched for how to be perfect in the 10 days before the exam and found my own pace. I quite liked studying.

March 11, 2011
"Farewell address from the graduate representative"

I am graduating from the middle school I love with the friends I love. I also feel the pride of being able to read the farewell address as a representative.

Seeing my friends tear up at the words I used to describe my own experiences, my heart warmed with the realization that I had definitely walked the same path as my classmates. I never want to go back to elementary school. But I want to stay with everyone from middle school forever. I was the most surprised of all that I had made friends I could feel that way about.

April 6, 2011
Since I attended a combined middle and high school, half of the class were members from middle school even after entering high school. I secretly admired the glamorous girls in class who livened up the sports festival.

It was presumptuous for a plain girl who used to speak in formal language to think that way. My classmates with loud laughter, who seemed to talk to teachers like friends and live freely, seemed to live a different life than I did.

I later learned that they each had their own delicate worries and were navigating the rough seas of human relationships while managing them well. But seeing them not fawning over others and not being swayed by others' expectations, I admired them and wanted to be friends with them too.

July 9, 2013
With the chime signaling the end of class, an anxious atmosphere and sighs fill the classroom. One week before the final exams, club activities are canceled, and everyone runs around trying to fill in the gaps in their notebooks.

Before long, my friends started competing over how many perfect scores I would get. Perfect score or not. The expectations placed on me kept rising.

However, it wasn't painful; I felt like regular exams were a game. If you put in the effort, you get results. Some people say the same about sports, but for me, getting a perfect score was much easier than making one good play in volleyball.

***

Since I was little, my father often said, 'It's not enough to just be good at studying.' He would say, 'Mayu, there are more important things you need to do.'

I knew he was right that there were more important things, like greeting people, cleaning up, and helping with housework. Both my parents worked, and we all shared the chores. I understood in my head that I couldn't just shut myself away in my own world and study.

But I often felt annoyed, thinking, 'But I'm bringing home such good grades!' Looking back, my parents praised me properly and never compared me to my sisters, so I was being ungrateful despite having a blessed environment for school.

I wasn't good at cleaning, and there was never any floor space in my room. It was only natural to be told to clean up. I wasn't good at housework, my bag was messy, and I would sometimes take my frustration out on my family. I was not an honor student at home at all.

Back then, I was 'a frog in a well who could only study and looked down on the world.' Now I understand how much more important the things my father said were for daily life and for shaping my character than just being able to study.

***

January 20, 2015
'Even you are hanging out in a place like this.'

The winter classroom was already cold, but my homeroom teacher's words made my body temperature drop even further. It was the day my friends celebrated my birthday before the end-of-day homeroom. The birthday cake that had been brought in suddenly was now just debris on my desk. A group of students making noise and eating a whole cake in the classroom while waiting for homeroom. Those were the first words the teacher said to me when they saw that.

I actually wanted to be a high school girl who hung out in 'a place like this.' I knew it. With my straight black hair cut to chin length, I didn't have the courage to break the rules on my own. I knew that I was the student who was top of the grade while doing club activities under a strict advisor, and that I was being favored by the homeroom teacher.

I was told I was different from my classmates who wore short skirts, wore makeup that wasn't too obvious, talked back to teachers, and still ran through their days happily. I just wanted to be treated equally as a student in the same place as my friends.

July 20, 2016
I know this feeling. People I wasn't even that close with suddenly start appearing around me to borrow my notes. Even after I became a university student, my 'friends' increased before regular exams.

I had the arrogance and confidence that even if they studied using my notes, they couldn't possibly get a better score than me, the one who made them. Looking back, my personality was terrible. Yet, I was evaluated as a kind person, and I felt the distance from my classmates once again. Who really knows my true voice?

October 8, 2017
I was so shy in elementary school, but now I'm running around every day juggling two circles and three part-time jobs. I'm not a lightweight when it comes to alcohol, so drinking parties are more fun than I thought.

My parents were surprised by my change. 'I didn't know Mayu could make so many friends.' 'I didn't think you'd be so active outside.' I think they were happy, even while worrying about their daughter who hardly ever came home.

February 28, 2018
'Notice of Sophia University Academic Excellence Award'
Seeing the email notification during my break at work, the corners of my mouth soften just a little.

“I got the Excellence Award again this year.”
When I sent this short message to our family group chat, a stamp of animals jumping around enthusiastically arrived a little later. My father is happy.

This is the third year in a row that I have received the Academic Excellence Award.
“Mayu-chan, you worked really hard again this year.” My mother always praised me.

But I had already realized that romance and friendships were far more difficult than regular exams. Outside of those I am close with, I am perceived as someone with good grades. For some reason, the boy I am interested in keeps me at a distance because I am smart.

Is it wrong to do what I like and am good at? Are smart women shunned? I had started to suppress myself once again.

***

In March 2018, I decided to take a leave of absence and go to New Zealand. With job hunting just around the corner, I suddenly chose to study abroad. I think I was simply afraid of the unknown ecosystem of being a working adult. As a convenient excuse, studying abroad, which my mother had kept suggesting, was perfect.

But I have lived a life where I haven't faced English. No, generally speaking, I'm probably not bad at it, but at my university, I'm on the lower end. On a campus where returnees walk around in crop tops, I can't possibly say that I am good at English.

That is the one area where honor students are weakest. As the level of being a “good kid” rises, one tries to avoid losing games or inconvenient facts in advance. That is why I avoided English moderately after entering university. By the time I turned 22, I thought I knew my own capacity.

Naturally, my English was no match for anyone in New Zealand. Among the Japanese students studying abroad at the same time, I was the girl who always had to have someone help her.

It was almost the first time since I became conscious of the world. Having to fully admit that I couldn't do something. It was incredibly scary to say that I couldn't do it. But I didn't even have the luxury to feel frustrated, and my incompetent self and my timid self were leaking out everywhere.

However, I soon realized that there were many people who would support me. I even feel like there are more people gathering around me than before I studied abroad. At first, I wanted to minimize my presence, thinking, “I'm sorry for being someone who can't do anything.” But actually, my unpretentious self helped close the distance between me and my friends.

It was okay for me to be weak. Realizing this, I felt the expectations I had been carrying so rigidly and the pressure I had been feeling on my own slowly melt away.

***

On the other hand, romance had always been my biggest complex. I'm not cute. Is it because I'm fat? Is it because I have single eyelids? Even though I went to a co-ed university and kept longing for romance, I couldn't get a boyfriend for three years. I don't think my personality is that bad. In fact, I'm much better than that girl.

I have never been loved by anyone. I have never been sought after by anyone other than my family. The feeling of blaming myself, thinking I have no charm and that it is my own fault, fell like lead, and it was the definitive reason why I couldn't like myself.

Studying always yields results if you work hard. But no matter how hard I tried or reflected on romance, I was never chosen by anyone.

However, having been able to show my weak self in New Zealand, I experienced being loved by a man who accepted my natural self entirely.

The shock of a world transformed.

It was a miracle to fall in love with someone and have them accept that love. In my first serious relationship, I was so afraid of being disliked that I prioritized what the other person wanted over my own feelings.

The habit of sensitively sensing what others wanted never left me, even after my student days. Perhaps that is why, even though I was someone who stood out, I was never bullied.

I became too good at living in a way that wouldn't make people feel 'uncomfortable.' My honor student style was to do exactly what I was told, whether it was grades or evaluations, and to read and perform the actions that would make people like me.

Is such a person interesting? Or rather, do I even like myself like that?

Looking around, the friends I like all frankly expressed their own obsessions and the things they loved. There was none of that chilly atmosphere that flows when you try to read people's faces to fit in. Instead of having thoughts that were easily swayed, they spent their time doing exactly what they wanted, with no front or back.

Everyone I met while studying abroad taught me so many things I couldn't do. Things more important than studying. Perhaps what my father wanted to convey to me included not just actions like housework or greetings, but also personal growth.

***

September 1, 2018
I launched my first blog. I thought I needed an income to keep living abroad on my own, so I started WordPress without thinking about the consequences. I had to live abroad to keep my relationship with my partner going. I was blind in my first love, and that's what I believed.

Besides, love abroad was lonely. Was it a cultural difference, or a personal issue? I consulted with the friends I was with too much, and wanting to vent the thoughts that kept circling in the same place, I chose to write.

October 20, 2018
I took the plunge and called my mother back in Japan.

'I think I'm going to quit job hunting. I want to live abroad more, I enjoy studying education, and I want to try aiming for graduate school overseas.'

Honestly, it wasn't that I wanted to continue studying. I just wanted to keep spending time with my partner, and I would do anything to make that happen. Looking back now, I think I was childish. But I believed in myself that I could continue studying and enjoy it.

My mother would surely be dumbfounded and worried. She would see through my true intentions. To the words I finally managed to say with trembling hands, my mother replied without even being surprised.

'I never thought you'd get a normal job from the start, Mayu-chan! Understood!'

I was stunned, and my mother was all for it. This person is always more on my side than I am. I quietly hung up the phone, and I solidified my resolve to get off the 'normal' track.

April 1, 2020
Once you decide to stop being an honor student, life without wearing a recruitment suit is easy. However, in the spring of 2020, when I graduated, COVID, which no one knew much about yet, had started to make noise in the news.

I had graduated, but my path wasn't decided. A disease called COVID, which I didn't really understand, seemed to be spreading around the world. But at the time, watching my classmates go off to work, I still had some leeway. It'll settle down in half a year. I thought, then I can just go abroad.

October 1, 2020
Six months later, COVID infections increased, and I even experienced the unprecedented event of a lockdown. Because of the family business, I was told as a part-timer to avoid going to the city center as much as possible. Even though I had enjoyed so much freedom abroad, in Japan, I was a caged bird at my parents' house. All I did every day was go grocery shopping twice a week and weed the garden.

I felt like I was going crazy. COVID was nowhere near over. Studying abroad was a dream within a dream. I had no place at home or in society. A part-timer who couldn't go to work was the same as a NEET, and I had no way to connect with society on my own. I had to leave the house. If I didn't work, I felt like I couldn't acknowledge myself. I was so driven into a corner that I would burst into tears when I was alone in my room.

October 10, 2020
Driven by a sense of intense confinement and anxiety, I began job hunting, which I had previously avoided. With support for students after graduation cut off due to COVID, I spent my days calling the public employment office. While friends who were job hunting as new graduates were landing positions at well-known companies or jobs for their dreams, all I received were offers for clerical work at small offices.

Ten employees, including fixed overtime, 190,000 yen monthly income. I knew I wasn't in a position to be picky, but I still couldn't let go of my hopes. What about wanting to use English in a global job? What about overseas assignments? What about remote work? What about a salary high enough to move out of my parents' house, or company housing? For someone who had dreamed of studying abroad, reality was too harsh.

December 28, 2020
Another thing I clung to was recruitment for returnees and international students. I had to bet on it. I applied to every company I knew, but I was rejected by all of them after the SPF tests, and by November, I was down to just one company.

Self-analysis and company research. No matter what I did, I was rejected, and I couldn't see a future. About a week after the final interview with the last company, I finally received a job offer. When the HR lady told me over the phone that I was the final new hire for the upcoming fiscal year, I was so happy I felt dazed on the street in Ikejiri-Ohashi.

June 15, 2021
I joined the company in April in the same bracket as other new graduates and started living alone, which had been my dream. Although COVID was still raging, I had never felt such joy in being connected to society and living independently.

My assignment was in a department with the word "global" in its name, which I had been aiming for. My first boss was someone who strongly taught me, "Let's do whatever we want to do. Even though this is a Japanese company with a long history, let's change the processes that need changing, starting with the younger staff."

Under this boss, I learned that there is no single right answer in work. I also learned to incorporate things I like into my work and to create a comfortable environment for myself. When I said I wanted to try graphic recording, my boss encouraged me.

If you create an environment where you can work easily, and it's not a bad thing, then let's go for it. To me, who thought a company was a place to repeat fixed tasks, a boss who could change common sense looked brilliant.

July 19, 2021
When I had gotten used to both work and living alone, I met my current boyfriend on a matching app recommended by a friend. Our conversation had a good rhythm, and I realized I wasn't holding back like I used to. He is someone who tells me it's okay to rely on him and says he finds my face when I wake up adorable. In my relationship with him, I learned more and more how to open up.

It's not the kind of "love" that makes me lose my mind. So, maybe this isn't romance. Having only known blind love, I didn't know if calm affection could be called love. But in the relationship that started that way, I was affirmed once again.

October 1, 2024
Even though I thought I should have dyed my hair blonde when I was a student, I suddenly longed for blonde hair. Two bleaches later, it was a gold close to white. A color that makes people ask if I even have a job.

It was a flashy color that someone doing secretarial work wouldn't normally have. After dyeing it myself, I went to work feeling nervous. However, my foreign boss complimented me, saying, "Nice hair color!" It seems the hair color that people in Japan worry about didn't matter to him.

Some of the clients who visited occasionally were surprised, even if they didn't say it out loud. A freer wind was blowing through the company. I felt I could work even harder to repay the environment that accepted me.

＊＊＊

Now, I am the eldest daughter who even gets teased by her family. I can rely on my partner, and I can talk about my failures to my colleagues. If it were the me from my student days, I would have tried to hide my failures. I was most afraid of being laughed at by someone. I used to try to find my self-worth by sensing others' expectations and meeting them.

But the people around me taught me that they don't stay with me because I'm a "good girl." I am a lovable person even if I am honest about what I like and say I dislike what I don't like. Even though I didn't know who my true self was, I became able to accept myself.

I haven't completely lost my perfectionist side, so there are times when I try to fake it. But that version of me is also human. Now I know that loving myself is a way to repay the important people in my present and past who supported me.

To those who have become accustomed to living as an honor student. To those who are afraid if they aren't meeting someone's expectations. If you take the plunge and listen to your own voice, the world might show you different colors.

It's okay to love the imperfect you, too. That is what I learned over 28 years from the many people I met. This is what I, an incomplete person who has broken free from being an honor student, want to convey.