How is it that there is silence when stories were once shared. That our mouths once smiled and laughed only to now show no emotion at all. How eyes used to look for one another now do everything they can to avoid even making a millisecond of contact. Excitement at getting to see one another is now replaced with dread. I don’t understand how we could have once been friends to now mean nothing to one another. How can all those memories be gone and considered nothing now, how can you just pretend I’m a stranger when we were once so close. I understand that time has passed but these avoided gazes or blank stares feel like a knife straight into my chest. I could never forget so how can you?
University Thoughts – Finding Yourself
I often forget that I am still growing. That I am still only in the first quarter of my life. Though I often find myself caught between who I want to be and who I’m trying to be, and I sometimes wonder if I’m trying to be the person I want to be, or if I’m trying to be the person I think other’s want me to be.
I’m not quite sure who I am, and I’m trying to work that out at the moment. Trying to work out what my place in this world is meant to be. I see how people at University change, some try desperately to reinvent themselves, to make people see them how they want people to see them, some people don’t change at all, some people kid themselves into thinking they are changing but they just can’t escape themselves, some just mature, and some are still lost, still trying to work out what sort of person they want to be.
Yet, the thing is, the thing I’m trying to remind myself is that I don’t just become one identity. I will go through so many reincarnations of myself throughout my life time, it’s not a matter of finding one and going with it. Perhaps I need to stop trying to find myself and be a specific person, but just let myself evolve and develop freely without pressure. The only sort of person I should be aiming to be in life is happy. Nothing else. The only person I need and want to be is happy.
University Thoughts – My First Home
I’ll be moving out of this house soon. A house that I can consider my first home, in a way, it’s not the home I grew up in and I may not own the house. But this is the first house I have lived in that I’ve paid for, that’s been mine. I think that has been the biggest part of 2nd Year at Uni, was the living. Was actually being an adult for once, not just playing pretend.
I’ve watched as the house has gotten more and more empty, as each one of us has moved out. So I’ve seen how it’s changed from our home, with our memories plastered everywhere to turn cold and bare. Even though our stamp and our identity can’t be seen I can still see it. I stand in spots and can see the memories.
The hub of our house, our living room, is so full of memories. There’s like this switch in my head that gets the projector whirring and I can see them play out before me in a haze. I can see that first day that I moved in. I can see us all sat in our seats sending ugly snapchats to each other. I can see us blaring music and looking like idiots as we leg dance. I can see us just dancing and playing about. I can see us having predrinks. I can see us playing blindfold hide and seek. I can see us all sat there watching bake off. I can see us watching scary films, and us all making it worse by scaring each other. I can see us all surrounded by books, whilst we’re trying to write our essays. I can see us comforting one another when we’re down. I can see us playing the try not to laugh game. I can see the time when I was woken up at 3am because there was a spider downstairs and none of them would get rid of it. I can see those stupidly late night chats. I can see the hungover days. I can see me late night baking because I was stressed and then the others joining me. I can see us all trying to cook in the smallest kitchen in the world at the same time. I can see the arguments we’ve had. I can see a load of us all napping at the same time. I can see us eating take away together. I can see us celebrating each other’s birthdays. I can see us gossiping together. I can see us talking. I can see us smiling. I can see us laughing. I can see us in complete silence. But we’re content. I can see us for what we were, a mismatched family of sorts.
So there’s this place that was the center of so many memories. They’re all there. And so many of them are so happy, and we’ve grown so much as people together. It’s like all those memories are my happy place and they’re trapped there. Trapped in that room, and I’m having to say goodbye to it and know that I won’t make any more memories there. And the ones that I have are gone, they’re done and they’re going to fade. I won’t remember them clearly and right now those general statements from before, aren’t general, because I can press play and see specific memories. But one day they aren’t going to. Nostalgia is one of the happiest yet saddest feelings to exist and I feel it so strongly and often. This place felt so purely mine, and I want to be able to preserve it. I’m happy to move on to somewhere new. I’m just not happy to let it go. I’m not ready for the memories to fade. I want to preserve it all, but I know I can’t. The memories may fade, but I’ll remember that for the most part I was so happy living here, and I was sad to say goodbye.
University Thoughts – An Unhappy Memory No-more
It hurts. Actually no.
It doesn’t.
It used to, and for a second I thought the wound
would open. Bare raw flesh back bracing the wind.
But the instant twang turned to nothing.
Faded quickly.
It’s almost laughable now.
At how there was a blip in the timeline,
where we were good friends. Maybe something more.
But it burned and then there was silence.
An awkwardness, a regret, a blip.
Where two strands of a timeline accidentally crossed
and the universe realised its mistake. It crushed it.
Made it an uncomfortable memory. A lesson perhaps.
For me at least.
Probably not for you. Probably meant nothing to you.
I doubt you ever think about it. Maybe if you do
it’s to laugh or cringe, at the blip that our unfated, mistake of a crossing was.
So now our silence is only broken when regretfully
you need something. I answer. The blip in the timeline
reopened just for a second.
Only to close once more.
So yes, its laughable now.
How a meeting of people
becomes a wound
becomes a scar
to become nothing at all.
A memory that was nothing more than some blip,
a mistake made by the universe. And me, I suppose.
University Thoughts – A Compass that Goes Nowhere
I want to see the world but I am not truly ready to try
Far too cautious to let my toe dip the water
Because the unknown is too cold and deep.
And, I never learnt how to swim.
Yet I still long to see something new
Let my eyes see something beyond the end of my nose.
I want to be 80 telling stories of my adventures
But I’m too preoccupied with saying that
So I never actually go on them.
Longing to be walking somewhere else,
But too stuck in my shell to poke my head out
And let the current take me somewhere new.
So I stay still.
Lying to myself that I’ll ever move.
University Thoughts – Beauty
As I get older the more I realise the world and life is all about beauty. If the view is pleasant then you’re going to stop and take a look. If your face is nice to look at you become more worth the world’s time. If your words are pretty then immediately people are more inclined to listen. If your work is clad in beauty then it is profitable.
When I was younger of course I knew about beauty and saw it. But it is only as I get older that I realise how important it may be. Sometimes it isn’t all about visual beauty though, its not all about the beauty that your eyes see, sometimes its about hearing something beautiful, or creating something beautiful or feeling something beautiful. At the end of the day though it isn’t about ugly and the world doesn’t want ugly, yet no matter how everyone strives and clouds their eyes to only want to see the beauty. There is still ugly. Although beauty is nice to look at, ugly is more interesting. And frankly although I want to be beautiful, and say beautiful things and create something beautiful. You sometimes have to accept the ugly and learn to appreciate it and see the beauty within the ugly. And sometimes, you’ve got be ugly in order to see what is truly beautiful.
University Thoughts – Patchwork Girl (a poem)
A patchwork girl.
When there’s a tear, she takes out her needle and thread
and repairs the damage of what’s been done.
When she’s worn out, she takes a new piece of fabric
and replaces what was lost with something new.
When the seams come undone, she finds the loose end
and pulls herself back together again.
Because no matter the problem, or how she’s falling apart,
a patchwork girl will find a way to mend.
She repairs herself and becomes something new and
better each time. Because she won’t fall to pieces.
She can’t.
University Thoughts – Love feels like… (a poem)
It’s the moment when the sun is on your face,
and you close your eyes as your whole body fills with warmth.
Even though my eyelids are shut I can still see colour.
It’s contentment. It’s as if the whole world stops
the world freezes for me in that second. Nothing else matters,
because nothing else exists. It’s just warmth and colour and content.
I’d like to imagine that’s what love feels like.
At moments, fleeting moments, our love would feel like that.
It’ll be that small smile that appears on my face. The smile
that is only reserved for quiet moments when people aren’t looking.
Like when I’m in the cinema and only the story and the
characters exist and their happiness is mine. You and me could be those
characters, and that secret smile hidden in the dark would be for us.
I’d like to imagine that’s what love feels like.
At moments, fleeting moments, our love would feel like that.
It’s that breath that you take after the days have been so stuffy.
As if I’ve been starving for oxygen because everything around me
feels closer somehow. As if everything is squeezing me, and the air
is too stuffy, the air is too hot, the air is not enough. Then it breaks.
The rain comes pouring down, the sound like a tiny orchestra just for me.
And with that first rain drop. I can finally breathe again.
I’d like to imagine that’s what love feels like.
At moments, fleeting moments, I fool myself into thinking that.
Because, to me, love feels like nothing.
Love is an empty wish as I blow out a candle.
University Thoughts – Review
I’m alone once again in the house as I wait till Monday to leave for Easter, And even then I’m not going straight home, I’m in London for a few days for work experience and then I’m come for a couple of days then I’m back.
Second Semester has gone just as fast as the first has, and with it of course has been a billion and one negatives. But I don’t want to focus on them. I always focus on them, I have had to live them, I don’t want to waste so much time reliving them as well. They were difficult enough I don’t want to continually torture myself. I do that enough so let me just take a couple of minutes to remember and reflect on the good. Because at the end of the day they are the memories I want to cherish and fixate on. (to be fair i should really do this reflection when I’m back after easter because i’m only back for a month, but I want to do it now.)
Second Semester, you gave me a late night trip up to the cathedral in my pajamas, late night walks, a film in a night, numerous drunk nights (most of which blur into one or can’t be remembered), an ftv drinking social, an ftv quiz social, a night of drunk baking, just baking in general, pin the tail on wayne the spliff donkey, an australian themed house party in liverpool with Laura before she left, late night adventure to a park with Nicola and Sara, the discovery of massive bop-it with Emma, Steve the swede, the aiden turner calendar, disney sing alongs in the living room, dancing in the living room, playing Zombies with Rachel, going to nandos and getting desert with Rachel, dying Alicia’s hair, dying Sara’s hair, dying Nicola’s hair, dying my own hair ginger, snapchat filters and captioning them to eachother, doing a modelling photoshoot, going to mcdonalds far too much, drunk kerplunk, the party light, girls night at Tyler’s with the mattresses downstairs watching romcoms with facemasks on and a shit tonne of food, chilli night, filming for Joes film, giving birth for Joe’s film, filming for Toby’s film, filming my own short film, finishing my short film, getting the smoke machine for my own film, staying up late just to talk about bridges for some unknown reason, getting addicted to the facebook games, going to the arcades, quiz night with my old flatmates, having singles night with Sara, trips to toys r us, eskimoos, try not to laugh game with water in our mouths, the house party that was both the best and worst thing ever, media research group presentation group meetings, the ugly bug ball, film nights with the house, long stints in the edit suite, going to the pub when the sun came out, doing work in the sun, nerf gun war, going to parallax for a film screening, the continuous ripping between myself and my friends, all the new inside jokes that we’ve created, still continuing to jump out at each other and just domestic life as a whole.
Because to be fair at the end of the day, it was the small things. Silly things that I can’t quite remember or have only just remembered now that gave me such joy. I find when I look at things as a whole, I find it underwhelming, disappointing, but I look. really look and remember, I can say it was pretty alright. Naturally there were blips, and tears, and arguments, and mistakes, and a billion and other bad things. But it was still good. I’ve still had fun and been happy between the bad and that’s what counts.
University Thoughts – Just Let Go
Letting go has never been a strength of mine. Never realised until recently that it may be one of my greatest weaknesses.
Sometimes you need to let things go, let mistakes go, let memories go, let people go and yet I cling onto them for dear life. It hurts people, it hurts me and yet I can’t for the life of me cut the rope. It’s like they’re lifelines and if I cut them then that’s it, I’m dead, or it’s as if they are the only things keeping me ashore and if I let anyone of these things go then the winds will take me and suddenly I’m lost at sea.
These things, memories, mistakes, places, people, they get under my skin. They know how to get under my skin. They don’t realise that once they are there, once they wiggle themselves there that I can’t just let go. It’s not in my nature to just let go, to give up.
I’m afraid to let go, even when I know it causes more damage to keep hold.
I want to apologise really. To those out there that I can’t let go, that I’m not sure how to let go. For some of you that’s okay, you don’t realise that you’re still under my skin, so it’s just me that’s still hurting, not you, you don’t have a clue. But there are others out there who get hurt because I can’t let go and so keep on trying, keep on trying to hold on. But it’s not working, and I’m trying. By god I’m trying. But It’s so hard, I don’t work like that. I want to keep everything, cherish everything, save what I can. So I’m sorry. But not just to you people, places, mistakes, memories and things but also to myself. I’m sorry I put you through this. You have to forgive yourself for this, but I know it’s hard. Maybe one day we’ll be able to but for now all I can provide are apologies.
365 thoughts in a year 