So I was a full-time student. It's an apt phrase because more than any other occupation it really does affect you full time. Wherever you are, whatever else you are doing you are defined as a student, by the discounts you get, by the debt you are in or by the friends you are with and the topics of discussion among you. And then it all ends, much quicker than it began and you have to move on to real life and find a job or continue on your pre-ordained career path. You have to find a vocation if you didn't already have one in mind and bust your balls going for it. Well, I found a calling, that occupation I felt like I was put here to have. Being a student, however is not a feasible career choice and I've been forced into retirement without even the "benefit" of a pension packet.
In this vein, today I will be considering the ends of things, and the beginnings too, and pondering why I can't do middles. This will give me a great opportunity to properly close the ledger on the student blog and turn the page into this new one.
It's odd really, I'm forever stuck between the poles of any situation, not in the middle of it but constantly flitting between beginning and end or occupying both ends of the spectrum at once. I was a great student and I'd kick the ass out of being retired if I didn't have to go get a job and make some money first. I'm not even really twenty-something. Not in my mind: emotionally and mentally I'm part 16-year-old, part nonagenarian. I'm a good friend (I hope) and I'd like to think I'd make a great husband but I'm crap at the whole boyfriend thing.
Is it just a lack of follow-through that means I'm forever feeling like the middle of a project is the hardest? Probably. I'd say that is the curse of my generation. I've seen twenty-somethings who have escaped the apathy of the convenience culture of the 21st century and are capable of putting in the graft required to get them where they want to be but in every town centre are the other kind of twenty-somethings, the ones who gave up on themselves and hang around smoking in tracksuits outside the job centre in one of the greatest natural occurrences of juxtapositional irony ever to grace the face of the Earth.
I escaped the chavish tendencies of my town - as did many of my friends - but something held me back, my aspirations and motivation got me just far enough to realise I'd never make it to the end of the line and actually fulfil any of my dreams.
It sounds bleak but things could be much worse and I'll be OK. The main thing to realise is that it'll all work out eventually. The volunteering I'm doing currently (helping to run a couple of Church football groups) will hopefully lead to some proper work at some stage.
Anyways, on to the other reason why I'm here.
The rebranding exercise this blog has been through was to make me write more considered material which I could hopefully use as an example of my work should I ever get the opportunity to work as a writer (unlikely, I know but still it's only fair to warn you that there will be a few TV, film and literature reviews coming soon). Which is all very well but the decision to maqke the change came as a shock even to me and did leave me feeling like what I'm now thinking of as the old blog didn't get to finish its story, so I just want to close the book on that one with a little update regarding some of the material contained therein.
As you can tell I'm finding it hard adjusting to life after university. It's a slow process that feels something like grieving. I've talked about the five stages of death before, as you might recall, and that situation remains pretty much as it was, except that the pain is gone, which is an odd sensation. I don't think I've ever felt this way and had it not hurt like hell. That caused me some consternation, as my biggest fear was forgetting in the weeks after uni. Eventually I realised that feeling is still there but it doesn't hurt as much. Like schrapnel in a soldier's leg, it hurt at one time and it still can make life difficult now, but it's just there, permanent but painless, reminder of the battles of days gone by.
Amongst the treasured mementos of the time when there was so much pain in my life are photos from Grad Ball and Graduation Day proper, the texts that flew back and forth on results day, the ring I bought myself as a facsimile of a Sikhi kara bracelet and of course the Christmas card that started this blog. It never got delivered, see, due to a tendency amongst those off campus to skive off the last few lectures of a semester. Along with it is the birthday card to the same person which was also destined to never reach its intended recipient.
And chief amongst them all are the memories, of cups of tea in the lounge, of plane-spotting in boring lectures, of that one time we drove to ASDA, I tagging along and buying stuff I didn't even need just because it was time spent together, of the frequent times I made an arse of myself because the nerves shut down my quality-control filters and of course of that last goodbye. The finalty of that memory makes me want to be able to shout at my past self to make more of those last minutes, for disarmed by and confident in the last words we shared I took no opportunity to say what needed saying or even to hang around longer than I normaly would. In the movie theatre of my brain, the last shot of that heart-wrenching scene is taken from behind me as I stroll away, it goes into slow-mo, music starts playing as the soft focus comes in and then the credits roll as the camera pulls back and up into the air and everything fades to black.
The last few months have been so hard because I don't want to leave the cinema. Maybe it's going to be like a Marvel hero movie; maybe there'll be a teaser for the sequel coming on soon.
Or maybe I can just sit in the dark and forget the world outside ever existed.
