A Time of Change

March, 2010. My first month of University. It’s been four years since then and wow, I have changed a lot. All of my friends either never went to Uni in the first place or are at the beginning of another year on campus and it’s a weird feeling to be left out. It’s also weird to feel like you’re moving into another stage of your life than your friends who are still attending university. Almost like you’re leaving them behind but you hands are joined, holding on for dear life, not wanting to leave – or be left.

Uni was an interesting time of my life – definitely a time of change. My sense of fashion was all over the place, I experimented with awful, unflattering make-up for the first time and I was hugely awkward. I still am. I didn’t know who I was – I wasn’t the depressed emo kid anymore, I wasn’t an independent adult, I was an inbetweener. Meeting so many new people who seemed more like me than anyone at school did was great. I was no longer the weird one, but I was still a loner. Uni seemed to fly by – three years felt like nothing in comparison to the five years of High School and the eight years of Primary School before that.

Sidenote: I’ve got almost no pictures from my times at Uni as I still hated having my picture taken because of my low self-esteem. I didn’t keep a diary throughout those three years so I don’t have any particular thoughts written down either. I just have my memories and my screenplays to look back on.

I was so excited to graduate last year – I was supposed to graduate at the end of 2012 but one of my credits was held up, which meant I didn’t graduate until mid-2013. I only had one class which I decided to take online, so I could get a job.

Feeling ready for a new beginning, I went into 2013 with goals and plans which apart from getting a job, I had accomplished by February. I was aimless for the next two months until I finally got my first job at a small business. I felt rejuvenated when I started work – I had a focus and a purpose, I had tasks to do and time to reflect on my growth which was very satisfying. I had also started seeing a therapist to work through some of my grief over my dad’s death and came a long way. I can talk about him now without my heart breaking and wanting to cry. That is something I thought was unimaginable for 13 years of my life – I was convinced the pain would never go away and it would always hurt as bad as it did during those years.

I delved into psychology in 2013 and found out a lot about myself and others. I’ve gained a deeper understanding of the people in my life and why they are the way they are. Discovering that they view the world differently to me has helped tremendously with all my relationships. I’ve found answers as to why I’ve never truly felt understood by anyone in my life – it’s simply because they don’t think about the same things as I do and their brains don’t work the same way. I’ve learned not to be angry at them about that as it’s not their fault.

These days most of my time is spent thinking about moving to Sydney. I think about the places I’ll go, the things I want to take pictures of, the way I want my place to look, the diy projects I’ll get to do, the people I’ll get to hang out with and so, so much more. I started saving money late last year and have done pretty well so I’m finally taking steps to make my dream a reality.

I’m worried about how my friendships will turn out. I’m terrible at keeping friends. Unless we make an effort to catch up all my friendships fall by the wayside. It’s not conceivable to think my friendships will be the same once I move hours away. There’s only so much you can know about each other through Facebook. Change is scary, exciting and incredibly necessary.

I wish all you University students the best for 2014 – soak it up while it lasts, it’ll be gone before you know it.