Yesterday I had the utter joy of meeting up with two of my house mates from university, I hadn't hung out with both of them together in three years, and for two years I barely saw either of them so it was very exciting to meet up with them in Greenwich where we went to uni and spend a few hours pretending we were students again.
My two house mates and their boyfriends
University was such a huge massive thing in my life, I started thinking about it at 15 as I was sitting exams in secondary school, and my three years in college was basically working towards the goal of getting into uni. I remember the night before I was due to get my A Level results which would either mean I got in or not, so clearly. I was volunteering at a Summer Camp in Somerset I was with my best friend who was also getting her results tomorrow, and I was laying in my tent unable to sleep as I jumped between feeling very very excited about going to uni and the utter dread if I didn't get is as I had absolutely no back up plan in place. In the end I told myself "I can't change anything now, and what ever happens I will just have to get on with it" and went to sleep !
At the time I didn't realise just how exciting university is while I was there, but looking back and talking with my friends about everything we got up to, you realise just how great it is and how many firsts we shared together. Moving out for the first time, cooking for the first time, going on a bus in London for the first time one of the girls had never ordered a Chinese before she moved to uni.
That's the thing about uni house mates, yeah I had other friends who went to uni and I did make many friends at uni as well but your house mates experience everything with you, these girls saw me drunkenly stumble home, they saw me the next day in a less then graceful state, they saw me cry over break ups, get exited about exam results, stress over essays and we have all cried with laughter together. We spent birthdays and Christmases together introduced each other to our family and friends from back home. So many experiences that you could only have because we all shared a flat.
Also it helped us all find our passion. When I first thought about going to uni I wanted to do History, for about 4 year it had it in my mind as that is what I wanted to do, I was very good at it, I really enjoyed the subject and I already knew what areas I wanted to focus on. But as college wore on there was a little flame growing that was getting brighter and brighter and by the time it came to filling out my University application there was no way I was going to pick any other subject apart from English. ( Though I must say I do still love History !)
And with my house mates I got to really dive into it. Me and one house mate, Alice, would spend hour talking in her room about Books and philosophers and essays and God, until the moon slipped away and the sun was peaking over roof tops. It was fantastic these new conversation I had never had before, all because we had be brought together by a desire to get a higher education and we all had our own specialised interests to bring to discussions.
Going to university is like being an adult, with disposable income and freedom but no real big responsibilities expect to pass your degree, which isn't by any means easy, but when you have literally having nothing else to worry about does help.
Meeting up with them was like re reading a much loved book, it took me right back there to that adventure we shared, forging our way together into adulthood. I could re read that book everyday and I would never get bored of it.
Thank you girls for being such great character in the best chapters of my story so far !
Three of us at our University grounds
Rella Xx
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