A New Life

September. A new season, a new term, a new place of learning, a new life.

The prospect of starting university is not something that has ever really affected me in any way whatsoever, I’ll be living at home and undertaking a 30 minute (all being good) commute into Wolverhampton whenever I’m required to be in attendance at the afore mentioned city’s university. I’ve never been worried at the prospect of becoming overwhelmed at university, I’ll be studying a subject (or two) that puts me right in my element (Foundation Course of Social Studies, Law and Communications which prepares me for a War Studies degree), I’m confident in my ability to, for once in my education lifespan, shine in something. I’ve also never been worried about the prospect of having to make new friends, I tend to get on fairly well with people but I’m not too fussed either way, if I don’t make any new friends then it won’t matter as I’ll probably only get distracted and I’d only see them at university anyway, seeing as I won’t be staying on campus, or even in the same county.

What is playing on my mind, however, is how bizarre I find it that the small circle of friends I was part of will now be spread thinly all over the country. I have friends going to Oxford, Cambridge, Derby, Nottingham, Chester, Manchester and Liverpool, just to name a few. That’s not counting those who are going to universities within Stoke (Keele and Staffs), admittedly, some of these will be commuting just like myself and some have deferred for a year so nothing will really change too much in that aspect, but I do find it hard to get my head around the fact that we’re all moving on in life, I’ve always pictured each and every single one of us just staying in Stoke-on-Trent for the rest of our lives, constantly doing stuff together. I knew and in some ways hoped that wouldn’t be true, it would become monotonous and almost pointless, we need to move on in life. This doesn’t disturb or upset me, it just confuses me, how could so much change be happening so quickly? In one month, we’ll all be at our respective universities, a million miles away from the life we were living just 6 months ago.

I’m not one of those people who sit and weep over friends moving away, its part of life, I just get on with it. I’m always happy for them that they’re experiencing new lives and new opportunities outside of this objectively bleak city. I wouldn’t even go as far to say that I’ll actively miss my friends, it won’t be nice not being able to indulge in our strange yet somehow regular activities that almost entirely revolve around the world of football, but I certainly won’t be aching my heart out for their presence and I’m sure they’ll feel the same. We’re an odd group, we could all easily go without each other for months on end, yet if we’re doing something and only one of us is missing, then it just doesn’t feel the same, rendering whatever it is that we’re doing somewhat, and somehow, boring.

It does feel like the end of an era, even though that at least 4 of us will see each other regularly at 5aside every Wednesday. The days of seeing each other around school or college, or pissing about in lessons are long gone, we’re all moving on in life. I think what I find so strange about this is that I don’t see any of us as adults, in my mind, we’ll always be a small childish group of idiots desperately trying to find something to do to fill the time, not a group of young adults beginning to find our way in the world down many separate paths. I always knew this day would come, I just find it hard to process now that it is.

I certainly don’t view this as a bad thing, we have to move on in life if we want to enjoy it and fulfil our dreams, I want all of my friends to do well, I certainly hope none of them end up being stuck in this decadent city against their choice for the rest of their lives. This new life will be a breath of fresh air for all of us, whilst still being something that does take some thinking to get your head around. All I want is for it all to work out fine, because I know we’ll always be that small childish group of idiots trying to find something to fill the time, I don’t think we’ll ever grow out of that, we’ll just grow into other roles in life, whilst happily retaining our childish yet grown up outlook on the lives that we live.

I know my posts can get a little weird when I write them late at night (its currently 02:21, I woke up and couldn’t get back to sleep) but they’re usually true. I have no idea if any of my friends will read this, I don’t really care if they do or don’t, I just hope that it’s taken well and I haven’t inadvertently made them all hate me.

For those of you who are, for some reason, wondering, I start at Wolverhampton University on Monday 16th September. I’m actually excited for it. Yeah, that’s pretty rare.

Until next time,

Auf wiedersehen, meine freunde!