Tonight I'm crying because my first year of university is over. I remember that Rhys (ex-boyfriend to those that aren't avid readers...which you should be) was at my house, happily watching a film with me when I left the sitting room and cried my eyes out to my mother. I simply couldn't comprehend the reality of leaving home and living in another place. I didn't want to leave the simple, everyday, wonderfully-loved, tea-filled life that I knew so well. I didn't think I was particularly a 'home bird.' My sister definitely is, subconsciously things would often happen that stopped her from leaving to go back to uni - a mislaid debit card, not having packed, forgetting train times, Mum said she would be happiest if the conservatoire was at the bottom of the road so she could come home every weekend.
When I was crying in the utility room that weekend, I really felt like that person. Even though I was so sure that I wasn't.
As university went on, I adjusted. I made fucking fantastic friends. Some people who I wasn't sure how I had lived without before university life, some who I felt I could tell everything to. People who helped me through ridiculously tough times of life. I learnt that I REALLY wasn't morning person and if lectures were before 12 o'clock in the afternoon I probably wasn't going to attend them. I learnt, more than ever, that I enjoy doing essays as soon as they're set rather than leaving them to the last minute. Also, only 8 hours of lectures a week? Absolutely no idea what to do with myself or how to fill my time. As much work as I may have to fill this free time in second year, how to fill it in first year English is still a complete mystery to me.
I've no idea what knowledge to impart to anyone attending their first year of university this September. I never understood the whole "reinvent yourself" idea; Sometimes people get on with who you are, and sometimes they don't. If they don't, that's okay, there's other people to make friends with. I can't tell you how you should fill up those empty hours when you feel alone and emotionally exhausted and drowning in your empty thoughts, you have to figure it out for yourself.
All I can say is, remember it, in what ever way you can. Clearly for me, it's writing it down and I'm looking forward in 20 year's time to sitting down (probably with my sister) and reading about much of an idiot I was, via my blog. Whatever happens, however uninteresting or wasted the year has felt, write it down. I promise you - you'll get to the end or the year and you'll be sitting in a pub, drinking your new favourite drink with your new best friends and you'll suddenly realise that this isn't a year that you'll want to forget. It was full of happiness, and gut-wrenching sadness, of incredible dance moves, muscle-pulling laughter, and of love. Of a crazy love that you haven't felt in years, a love that is all-consuming and all kinds of wonderful that you can't quite place your finger on or put into seemingly meaningless words. It's a kind of love you won't want to forget.
This is the most accurate way I can explain the first year of university.
Much love xx
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