on leaving university

I thought I would feel more. I thought there would be plenty of leaving parties and last hugs goodbye, but there wasn't. People just started to fade away, and I continued to go to work everyday, completley unaffected.

Perhaps it will hit me when September comes, and I realise that we will never sit in a classroom together again, or make a trip to the local pub in between lectures, or laugh and share hangovers and stupid in-jokes. I think that because I am not leaving myself, it doesn't feel like such a huge step. It is nice to return from a long shift and think "well that's me done then, goodnight."

Just before I left for University, someone told me that if I walked out of their front door we would no longer be friends. I called their bluff and left, and we didn't speak for a year. When my Mum found out I was walking home in the middle of the night she came and picked me up and for the first time in our lives, we had a heart-to-heart. She told me what was on her mind, and I returned the favour. Mum said that she thought uni would be good for me and she knew I would be fine because I had always adapted really well to change. I imagined myself to be someone who would find change hard, but over the years I have realised that it affects me so little that it is almost worrying.

I like to be able to fret about tiny things, huge things just seem to happen. I suppose it will be the tiny things I miss most too; Coffee with Chris, laughing with Claire, having a cigarette with Joe and wondering why we weren't closer. Bumping into Alexia and Laurena when we were all late for lectures, and always getting something out of even a really small conversation with them. Sitting on the rock while the lads smoked roll ups and let me join in their crude and hilarious conversations as an honourary man. I'll miss Georgia, because I don't think I will ever meet another person like her.

So yes, the tiny things will creep up on me and demand I feel their absence, but nothing really feels any different.