So as I sit down for yet another cup of strong coffee after a bad nights sleep I wonder if I am missing home. Getting away was something that I pined for a few weeks ago. The idea of getting away for a week to a beautiful wee town on the Fife coast seemed somewhat idyllic to me - and so it still is. Apart from the loss of the vital limb that is a connection to the internet and the fact that I have to stand outside if I want to use my phone, I love it here. The weather has treated me well and the sea air has left me feeling refreshed and revitalised after a period where I was feeling the lethargy that the unrelenting onset of exams seems to always bring for me. I thought that maybe getting away for a while and recollecting my thoughts a little might, in some ways, save me. To a certain extent I believe this has happened but I suppose that once I am back and finding myself trudging through the piles of notes and past papers that waits under my bed I will really know what this break has achieved.
It is an interesting challenge for me since I have no connection to the internet and so this post will not be put online until I get back so this is being written with no knowledge of the day when you guys will first read it. The topic of this post has been one that has simmered under the surface with me for a while. Any time I felt that I could sit down and bash it out, there was a reason that I worried that I would not be able to do it justice and so find myself on the brink of publishing a potentially funny yet rather skimmed view of my feelings on the matter. The topic is a fairly scary one for me to think about and will be one that everyone else will have contemplated at some point of the last few months - moving away from home. It's not something that worries me really, more something that excites me (although it has be said that if something excites me other people generally become scared so hold onto your hats for what could be a rather cathartic post). The main reason that I have not pulled myself up a 'new post' over the last few weeks has been that I am slightly worried that I may make someone depressed or even worse, cry. I am not in the habit of doing so which means that any crying you do from here on in should be about the poor quality of my writing and occasional bad joke. It is weird thought when I look at the different places that the people who I am close to are going. If you took a map of Britain and pin pointed all of the places that everyone you know is going for university then you are bound to realise that it is a massively diverse demographic. It is almost as if we have been getting chewed on for 6 years by high school and now we are being spat out across the nation. Some closer to home could be seen as the big lump of chewy beef that you just can't swallow and has to be slipped onto your plate and then the others - who need to change trains twice or more to get to their new cities - could be seen as a good hard peppercorn, spat like a bullet to a unliked relative at the other end of the table. It's always interesting when I hear people say that students don't chose their universities, they choose them. To a certain extent this can be true. In the unfortunate case when someone does not get offered a place at their first choice but at their second, the university becomes their substitute and so in this case has made up their minds for them. However when someone is lucky enough to get offered a place at more than one establishment that they are interested in then they immediately become the executors of their own future. This may seem to be moving away from the main point of moving from home but in reality it is the essence of the whole thing. I mean does someone decide to move to the furthest university from their homes just to get away? I certainly think not. Their choice is based upon their potential new lifestyles, the academic advantages but most of all there is always the question of 'how easy will it be for me to get home when I need some clothes washed?’ In my case that question occurred to me for a just a moment before the academic advantages of my chosen university became paramount but for some the thought of clean clothes for home is top of their list. Life away from home is always bound to be difficult, mainly because none of us have ever done it before. Personally I have never had to plan dinners, iron clothes, budget or worry about sharing a bathroom with people I don't know. All of these things will soon be a huge part of everyday life for me which indicates a seismic change which will be apparent in most new university student's lives. If I am honest, the comment I made at the start of this paragraph about moving away from home not worrying me is a complete lie. I worry about it every day and will continue to do so right up until it is reality. That, I suppose, is just human nature and is something that I’m sure you can all relate to.
The main reason why this post was going to be difficult to write for me was this - I am going to miss everyone massively. From the idea of knowing everyone’s faces to the simple things like a common room full of the laughter of unheard jokes. People will be going their separate ways in only a matter of months, some destined never to see or hear from each other ever again. I will even miss the people that I don't talk to because what they represent is a feeling of normality and continuity that will be lost as soon as we all walk out of the front doors of our high schools for the last time. I have heard people vowing never to go back again and people saying that they hate the place but, as I have alluded to in previous posts, people are going miss high school like they would a leg. As my head is slightly warped, I am now picturing those who have said to me that they will miss high school trading one of their legs for the right to stay on just for one more year. It’s a disgusting thought that I wish none of you to ever have but, such is the power of writing, you are all now picturing a blood bath in the craft and design department involving band-saws and duck tape. Sorry about that. As not to repeat myself from other posts, I will not list all of the things that I know people will miss but instead I will focus on the biggest one of all. The people that we spend every day of our lives with are the people that have sculpted us (for better or for worse) and are the people that we will miss the most. Surely the occasional bi-weekly email will not replace the day-to-day banter that we all know and love. Never will msn replace the exchange of pleasantries such as hugs (that goes for the guys as well). We think we have made it into a new age where we can keep up appearances with the occasional 'convo' or text but really there is not a thing in the world that can replace face-to-face communication. As I mentioned before, this is a most depressing thought and seems only to be getting darker as the post goes on but fear not for I am here to bring some light to your darkness. Who are these people that you will miss? List in your head the people that you will miss the most when you are away at university and then think about where those people are going and what they are going to study. Think about your current relationship with these people and how they will be affected by this new divide. Now what to do is think of a way to bridge that divide. When can you meet up again? When do these people come home and do they come home at the same time as you? Life away from your closest friends can still retain a certain level of normality. I have seen it with older people I know at university. Even the ones that have come up here from England or over from Ireland have found that life still goes on. You meet new people and then you introduce them to your old friends and they do likewise. Fear not about moving away from friends because if they are true friends then nothing at all will change.
Now just a short bit about the people you go to school with that you don't talk to just now but might one day come across and exchange pleasantries with. These people are surprisingly vital to how you are going to cope with moving to university in my opinion (I know I sound like a bit of an old-hand at all of this but I am speculating more than anything else about this particular point). They may be undesirable to you just now; you may not like them and they may not like you but it is important to realise that you will always have these people in your life. The faces and names may change and the feelings you feel for them may change but they will always be there and will never go away so there is really no need to worry about losing the ones that are currently around you - they are the old models, now bring on new people that you don't talk to.
Thanks for reading. I hope that I did not make you cry and if I did I am sincerely sorry. I'm joking of course because I know that every one that reads this knows all of this stuff and will have come up with their own way of dealing with this inevitability. I just thought that is was a good idea to document it maybe as a reference guide for those days when you get a little down about moving away. The moral of this post I suppose is that there is no point in feeling sad about moving away from all of the people that mean something to you. Make the most of the time that you have with them and don't look back on these next few months and regret anything.
Any comments would be very much appreciated on my Facebook page and even if you only want to object to this post or just heckle me then I'm more than happy to read your thoughts: I would rather you didn't of course because I have tendency to 'laugh out loud' at heckling.
Thanks again,
Martin
