The Outstanding Senior Award

There were 3 valedictorians of my high school class.  I wasn't one of them.

At senior awards night, they gave out the awards for the outstanding senior.  Or, seniors.  There were 3 given out and, unsurprisingly, they went to the 3 valedictorians.  "But!" they said, they had decided to give out one more outstanding senior award, to someone who, while not a valedictorian, had worked just as hard by taking so many difficult classes, along with doing many extracurricular activities...
I sighed.  I already knew what was going to happen.


I didn't deserve it, you know.  I mean, it was cool to get something that I hadn't expected to receive, but I couldn't shake off that feeling.
The thing was, I should have been the valedictorian.  I had the most weighted classes, so as long as I got straight A's, I would have had the highest GPA.  I say that like it's an easy thing, getting straight A's, but for me, it should have been.  But no, I couldn't complete my assignments.  I couldn't find the motivation to do anything.  They would look at the records and say, "Hey, you have 5 Advanced Placement classes and college math classes.  There's no shame in getting a couple B's," or rather, "It's outstanding to get mostly A's."  But no one really understood.  It really was a shame.

I walked up the stage, some of my doubts reflected in my hunched posture.

Still, it wasn't exactly that I didn't deserve it.  I mean, if you put together everything I had done, it really was pretty outstanding.  So if they were giving it to me purely because of what I had accomplished during my time there, well, I guess you could say that I deserved it.  But if it was at all because of the effort I had put in...  Well that was all a lie and I really didn't deserve it then.

When the night was over I had quite the collection.  The math department award (I would have felt cheated if I didn't get that one), recognition for being a National Merit Finalist, along with some other stuff, including the outstanding senior award.  My parents would look at it and say, "Doesn't it make you think back on how well you did in high school?"  It made me think back on how much of a fool I was, and how I got a bunch of recognition that I wasn't sure I deserved.  How many mistakes I made.  It was all just awful.  Although, there was a lot of amazing stuff too.  I don't know.  There were the good things and the bad things.  I guess that's how all my memories were.  "-credit for all the hard work you did."  That would leave me with nothing to say.  But it would go unnoticed.  I never really had anything to say.

I never found the answer.  Should I take the credit and be happy, ignoring any doubts?  Should I feel ashamed, knowing I never deserved it?  Should I argue that I really did deserve it?  It might have been worthwhile to choose one answer and stick with it then.  Because, although it wouldn't have surprised me to know it back then, I couldn't have known.  I couldn't have known for sure that these questions were fated to haunt me forever.  Or that it was my destiny to go through the same scenario again.