What now?
How do you pick up the threads of an old
life? How do you go on, when in your heart
you begin to understand. There is no going
back. There are some things that time
cannot mend. Some hurts that go too deep.
That have taken hold.
While I am certainly not going over to the Grey Havens, this is a time of enormous change.
I failed to be elected for the sabbatical position I so craved, a role which I realised recently was the closest I had felt to a vocational calling than anything else I have ever considered. So I was heartbroken the night that the result was announced, worried because my dissertation was non-existent and due in 4 weeks, and so I got more pissed than I have in quite some time and went home with a friend, shall we say? Although I’m still annoyed I lost, I’m no longer that fussed. I don’t think the person who won will be any great shakes, but then I’m not convinced I would have been either.
The other consequence of losing; moving back to Edinburgh. I can’t afford to stay on in Aberdeen without a definite source of income, as it would mean eating into my precious savings, which are for something better than hanging around in a place I no longer really need to be. I think this is my time for a rumspringa of sorts, to try and determine where I want to be and what I want to be doing. After 4 years at university, I’m not really any wiser. Kathryn and I were having a conversation just now about how we have changed. I’m not sure I’ve changed that much, other than that I fiercely value my independence now, hence why moving back is something I’m not looking forward to. I love my mum, but she nags and wants to know everything. Being 135 miles away and only speaking on the phone means I can limit what she knows. For instance, right now, I could bring somebody home and although it would be the subject of gossip, it wouldn’t be subject to the scrutiny of my mum.
Most people I know are staying on at university for another year, for whatever reason. I have to discover the big bad world now, and I don’t feel that ready for it. I suppose most people probably feel like this.
N.B. I wrote this ages ago, still a bit apprehensive about the move but it’s not forever, and little things help, like knowing I’ve had enough of this bloody flat and that my room in my Dad’s house is shaping up to be somewhere I’d want to live.
