Here I am writing student related articles for a client, and it’s got me reminiscing about my time as a student. Although it’s supposed to be the best time of your life, for me it was quite a challenging few years. My father passed away when I was three months into my course, and he was in hospital from the start. When my exams came around in January I had to make a decision, quit and grieve for my father, or soldier on and try and manage my grief whilst being three hours away from my friends and family. I chose the latter.
Don’t get me wrong, I obviously did enjoy University, and most importantly, I bloody loved my degree. There were lots of highs, coupled with plenty of lows. I don’t regret deciding to stay at uni, because at the end of the day, I got a degree and some wonderful memories out of it. However, that person I was at uni, that wasn’t really me. Here’s why.
Instead of letting myself grieve, I put on a brave face. As a fresher, I threw myself into University life and got sucked into the popularity contest. I don’t know how other Universities compare, but Loughborough was HUGE on hall spirit. I did some rather questionable (and hilarious) dares and challenges in order to compete for a place on the hall committee, and I won my place and got voted on by my peers.
One of the things I had to do was dress up as a metal fan and do a performance to ‘The Ace of Spades’ by Motorhead. LOL. Those of you know me can imagine how awful this must have been for people to watch.
Anyway, I joined the committee and took part in all the social events. I pretty much coasted through my freshers year, despite the pain that I was concealing behind closed doors. In my second year I had to stay on in the halls as a committee member and look after all the new students.
It was then that it hit me that I don’t actually enjoy endless socialising and going out every single night, and I couldn’t cope. I did my job for the first few months, then I started avoiding social events and hiding away in my room. My grief hit me like a ton of bricks. I developed a wave of social anxiety and kept escaping home to my family, friends and boyfriend.
Before going to uni I had a pretty tight group of friends. Friends who know me inside out, and who I am completely comfortable with. Some people who might have struggled at school to find real friends find their soul mates at uni, but for me it was the other way around. I already had amazing friends, and the people I met at University weren’t able to see the real me.
They only got to know the Kiri who was trying her best to fit in. I was trying to be something I wasn’t, and I was struggling to cope with my grief. People started judging me for not going out clubbing every night anymore. This probably happens to a lot of people. Uni is a transitional stage in your life, and you live in a bit of a bubble. It’s a time when a lot of people are trying to figure out the sort of person they want to be.
It takes a long time to figure who you are, and love yourself for your quirks and personality traits. I am still learning about myself now. When I look back to my uni days, I don’t’ think I had a clue who I was, and I don’t think at that age many people do. I probably have two friends from university who I keep in touch with. The rest have faded away.
My best friend at uni is now non-existent in my life, partly because when we first became friends I was pretending to be something I wasn’t, and perhaps we don’t have much in common after all. Still, after everything we went through it’s a shame it came to this. Anyway, she’s not the reason I am writing this article.
If I could go back in time and do uni again, I would do things very differently. I would probably form completely different friendships now knowing the person I really am. I would have given certain people more time, and resisted the urge to try and be popular. But I can’t go back, and I don’t really need to. It was a learning experience and something that’s shaped who I am today.
It helped me realise
who I really am, and gradually I have come to accept myself. I am a bit of an introvert, which doesn’t mean I am not confident. I just like my own space and love nothing more than switching off and transporting myself into the wonderful world of writing. But I also love spending time with my friends, in a situation I feel comfortable with. I am a social butterfly, just on my terms.
I feel so blessed to have so many true friends in my life, people who I can really count on. It doesn’t matter that I am not in touch with 50 people I went to uni with. It matters that I have surrounded myself with people who make me happy, who I can be myself around. So to all the people I met at uni, it was a pleasure to meet you, and I hope all is well in your life, but please note the person you met wasn’t me.
This is me, and I am extremely proud of the person I am today. Writing this has proved tougher than I thought, because thinking something and actually putting it into words are two different things. It’s brought back a very tough time in my life, but it has also shown me just how far I have come and enabled me to appreciate how happy I am these days.
