1 day left until the exhibition is over.
4 days and 1 month until I move from university back to home.
18 days and 1 month until I graduate for good.
And forever to be whatever I want to be for the rest of my life.
It is coming to the end of my education in university, and I am not scared for whatever happens afterwards. I am willing to embrace the dramatic change and become an adult with a degree. I know what I want to do with what skills I have developed over the last five years, and will not become one of those who wastes their degree by getting a shelf job, never having to use what they spent thousands to learn. Yes I will need to get a part-time job probably stacking shelves to start with until my art becomes the main source of income, but I will not let it consume me. I have many options ahead of me and any one of them could change, and that’s ok. So long as I am happy and still doing my art as often as I still am now, maybe more often.
But what I am scared of is what I will be leaving behind. Comparing my life here at university to my life at home is like looking at two completely different people. Here I have friends, a social life. Freedom to walk 5 minutes to the beach and 10 to walk to town. Restaurants and takeaways I have been a regular at so much that the managers and staff recognise me, and have become like friends in a formal manner. A home to look after and pay the bills, something to be proud of (even though I am not proud of the mess it gets in due to the other housemates.) And mostly the people I have come to call friends. It will be hard not being able to simply walk down the corridor just to have a cup of tea and chat with any of them ever again. We all come from different places across the country, and it’s not easy just to hop on the train to visit for a few hours either.
I have learnt so much since moving away from home, and not just art skills, but things that you don’t get taught but learn through experience. I have learnt what it takes to look after myself, cook, clean, how to look after a house. How you don’t have to get everyone to like you and accept people for who they are and myself, that I shouldn’t change anything about myself just to please others. I am quite an anxious person but have learnt not to let that over come me so often (I can even talk to people on the phone now!) I now know what I like and dislike. I am not afraid to be myself. I have a better relationship with my parents now that I understand adult things and why they do what they do.
I have a plan and a future ahead of me and cannot wait for it.
Thank you for everyone who has followed this blog. This is not the end yet. Keep an eye out.
Sarah.
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