Not so bad after all...

I set my alarm for 10:45 but by 10:30 I was awake. My stomach had butterflies the minute I saw the date and time and I just wanted to sleep. I always feel like if I sleep, while my eyes are closed I won't worry. Of course..... I am always wrong.

I stumbled out of bed and blundered along. Showered, dressed, had breakfast and met my friend at Liverpool Street Station. I waited near Costa and staring towards the ticket barriers, watching to see if the train had come, it occurred to me that everything had become a metaphor. I kept looking at doorways and exit signs as signals for beginnings and endings.

I didn't want to go through with graduation. 

In fact, I kept telling my friend as we walked to the hall, that we could just turn back. When we entered the hall, I panicked inwardly. I saw people in gowns everywhere. Families. Lots of cameras. Lots of posing. Lots of people smiling. What surprised me most of all, was how emotional I felt. 

It's weird because I'd seen pictures on Facebook and Twitter of other departments' graduation ceremonies and I knew what the gowns looked like. But to see a swarm of graduating students and to recognise that I was one of them, to be able to insert and position myself among all these other students, was scary and emotional- in a good way. I thought that I'd be too nervous to feel anything else but actually, the ceremony was heart-warming. There was a sense of humour and tenderness in the presentations. There was a strong feeling of camaraderie, even though I didn't know most of the people personally. I was struck by this intense realisation that I was a part of everyone else's experiences, just like they were a part of mine. I was and have been, so worried about feeling distanced from graduating, but actually, I think I just needed to realise that actually, I knew more people that I thought. I had made more connections than I thought. And I was less nervous than I thought. So many of my classmates came to say hi to myself and my friends. It was touching to be embraced, literally (and I'm not even a hugging person), by people who were feeling joyful and wanted to share their glee.

Seeing my family too, when they came to collect their tickets, made me realise that this was a special occasion. For all that I was worried and anxious about, I was right to go. I would have definitely regretted it had I stayed away. 

I just feel like I faced something today. Not a fear as such, but something overwhelming.

Looking back on it, I think the reason I found graduation so stressful was because I didn't want to deal with the broader picture. I am now a graduate. I am a degree holder. I have a certificate that says it all. I don't feel any different, but to the world, I am a different person. Or at least, I have a new side of myself to embrace.

It's not been an easy ride so far, and I don't think it's going to get easier. But I'm learning to embrace the curve balls and see where they take me.


T

*FYI- Turns out graduation doesn't suck after all. In fact, I highly recommend it.

Pre-Graduation Jitters/Doubts/Worries/Apathy?

Graduating feels so different from leaving secondary school and sixth form. It's so much more lonely. Usually when you leave school, there is a last day, a finale. Uni isn't like that. There's no closure. It's just a long process of being in limbo.

You come to the end of your final semester, the last seminar, but you're still yet to face exams or coursework. Then you embark on a month of horrid exam preparation or coursework all-nighters. Then you have another month of waiting for results. After that, you wait for your final award to be ratified. Then you are bombarded by e-mails about graduation and you're ultimately just confused. Apart from the few friends you have on your course, there's no collective moment where you know everything has come to end.

I remember leaving primary and secondary school. There were hugs and lingering goodbyes. Right now, I haven't experienced any of that. I feel numb. I know there are things I should be feeling- nervous, excited, sad about endings, hopeful etc- but I'm more anxious than anything. I just want it to be over. I don't feel sure about anything.

I know that this is all in my head. I know that if I told people what I am feeling, they would tell me it's normal. Everyone is scared. Everyone is anxious. No one knows what they are doing.

But I'm not sure that it's enough.

It's not enough to know everyone is finding it hard.

I want to stop finding things hard.

And I think that's what makes it all the more difficult. Graduating is another milestone achieved and yet I feel like nothing has changed for me. I can see posts on Facebook where distant acquaintances and friends reminisce and ponder on the most rewarding and life-changing three years of their life. Instead, I look back and I find it hard to see where I've grown. I know that if anyone is reading this (who isn't me), they're thinking that I'm feeling sorry for myself.

"Of course in three years you've achieved something!".....you're probably shouting at me right now. You and the rational side of my brain are in agreement.

I think graduation for me is finding the ability to face the past three years and accept that I have changed.
It means being less hard on myself.
It means realising that there is time to make the progress I wanted to make, but haven't.
It means looking forward and not staying in a slump.

Of course, this is all easier said than done.

T

Third Year.

This post is not groundbreaking. It will not reveal anything the internet has not encountered before. But I have been thinking these things for a while and writing this all somewhere feels necessary somehow.

That was a very long-winded way of saying university has ended. It is cliche, so utterly cliche that I am going to say that third year is (was- I must use the past tense now) hard. I knew going into this year that it was my last year of university. I spoke to a tutor at the beginning of the year about the fact that the first semester was sort of tough, knowing in my head that this was something everyone was whining about. I sat there telling her that third year was harder than I thought it would be- which was true in a way, because I can generally rationalise things and recognise that if things are a bit difficult it's because I am procrastinating and not doing the work; the work is not necessarily difficult in itself. But despite saying all this to her, I sat there exasperated with myself. I felt this feeling of stupidity because I was just another twenty-something in her last year of uni, talking about how it was 'slightly difficult'.

I'm not sure if that all makes sense.

Essentially, I knew of the cliche, I had watched the cliche unravel before me, amongst friends of mine who graduated last year. I knew and expected that this year I would encounter the cliche. But I think deep down I thought it would be an external encounter. I didn't think it'd be an internal encounter, a personal one. I didn't think it would affect me. I never realised that I would become privy to this cliche, that I would hop on that train to loony town. It's a confusing and momentous time all at once. You feel like you're moving on and moving backward which only stops you from moving at all.

I never expected it.

Truly.

But then I experienced my first all-nighter. I think that's when I knew. I don't do all-nighters. I don't pretend to be amazing at organising myself, but I am good at getting things done. When I know there's a deadline, I make sure I meet it. But this time, something changed. I had things done, but it felt different. I entered the cliche. I jumped on the train to loony town. I stayed awake all night finishing my essays and watched the sky change from night to day outside the attic window. I heard the gentle breathing (and violent snoring) of my family fill the house as I typed frantically and hopelessly. When embarking on an all-nighter, darkness surrounds you. Literally and metaphorically. It's all dark and foggy. It's hard to see the light at the end of the tunnel. Eventually, when I finished the essay, I remember being too tired to even cry. That's when third year hit me.

Now I'm getting emails about booking graduation and buying tickets and hiring gowns. There are emails about possible internships and jobs in companies x, y and z. There are emails about post-graduate courses and random-I-didn't-know-they-existed courses. Then there are emails that I should definitely be paying attention to, about preparing for my PGCE course next year. But I've just finished my degree- I'm not ready to prepare just yet. Then there are emails about things running out- like library memberships.

Everything is running out.

And there are just too many emails.



This is (was) third year. It (is) was hard. I knew third year was supposed to be hard but I didn't know it would be hard for me. It sounds arrogant, as if I think I am above it all. It's true. I was arrogant. I misunderstood. I was wrong.

Third year sucked.

It's a cliche for a reason.

x

T.