Change

When I think of change I have a tendency to think about one big moment or thing that completely changes you. I tend to think that doing one particular thing will make me a whole new person with different interests and different values almost overnight. Recently I realised that that is just not true at all and I think that might be one of the reasons I found it so hard coming to university. The thing that made me realise this was having my first 'night out' last week with my friends here at uni. Before I went out, I thought about it like I would go out and wake up the next morning a completely different person who somehow thought differently. Then I went out and woke up feeling exactly the same as I have done for as long as I can remember. Things didn't change like I thought they should.

It was then that I realised that change doesn't actually happen all at once, it sneaks up on you. I realised that I'd had a similar view on going to university: I'd gone into it expecting to change so much that I didn't know how to think about the Christmas holidays because I didn't know who I'd be then. When I got here I found that nothing actually changed as I wanted or expected it to, I was still me. I was just in a different place surrounded by different people. I still feel like the same person I was in the summer which I didn't expect at all. I definitely expected to come to university and have a brilliant time and make new friends and change into this new, confident and better person as quickly as over a few months.

I think this might be a result of many things.I think, in the past, I had defined myself very much in terms of the people who I love and I thought that being away from them would change me a lot. It hasn't really. I still speak to the most important people in my life on a daily basis. I also think that I was told so many times that university would be 'the best experience of my life' etc. that I had unrealistically high expectations of what I was coming to. It was scary but I was always more or less optimistic about coming and then it didn't meet my expectations at all. Thats a hard thing to deal with.

Although I haven't had a massive change here at uni so far, I think there have been small changes. I still feel like the person I had become and started to like in recent years but with extra. I'm used to doing things for myself more and I know I can send time alone and not only survive but enjoy myself. Change has happened, just not in the way I thought it would and I am grateful for that because I am becoming stronger at least.