It's funny how these days, I think of years as beginning and ending in the summer. I suppose that's what comes of three or four years of chapters ending in May and June and new ones beginning in September; exams, and with them, the end of sections of my life I had only just got used to living.
This year is no different. Right now I'm in the car on my way back down South - my room at uni is empty and my key dropped off. I don't live in York anymore, and it's hitting me surprisingly hard.
I just wrote "on my way home" and then I deleted it and put "down South" instead. Because how can I be going home? Reading may be the place I grew up in, the place I spent eighteen years living in, but how can York not be my home when it's the first place I've been independent, the first place I've lived as a whole person rather than as a part of a family? It's the first place I myself have ever chosen to live. How can York not be my home?
No, for the second year in a row, I am leaving my home. I'm going back to live with my family again. It's a bit strange how final this feels; if it's this depressing finishing one year of university, I can't imagine what it's like for the people leaving for good. But on the other hand - I've finished one year of university! I'm not a fresher anymore! I did it! That's huge and that's amazing and that means that things are getting real now. My grades actually count now. As they do every year, the stakes are getting higher. Again.
I'm a third of the way through my degree and the next two years are going to fly. Nothing ever lasts as long as it should... it feels like the minute I get used to some huge adjustment in my life and actually settle in and start enjoying myself, everything changes again. Don't get me wrong, I'm not complaining; living in Spain is going to be an incredible experience and it is what I chose to do. It's simply that I fell in love with York and my life there, and now it's over.
But there are worse things in life than being sad because something amazing has ended. I'd rather be sad to leave than happy to, because that means that I made the most of living in halls, and I will always remember the amazing times that I had there.
Molly x
