I walked past the bridge overlooking the Cam, just past Magdalene College, just past the side walls of St Johns and saw blossoms in a November afternoon. That I think was really a marker of time passing for me, the impossibility of it, the pink against the blue twilight. And its always small moments like these, small moments where I’m walking, alone, along Kings Parade and Trinity Street and Queens Road that I stop to feel very extremely grateful.
A year ago today I was stressing over entrance exams, over UCAS applications, over the looming thought of exams. Two years ago, I was sitting in a summer field discussing the far-off thought of going to university, my sixteen-year-old self wrapped up in the haziness of what-ifs. I don‘t think me then would quite believe where I am now. When God grants your dream come true what more can you really do than express your gratefulness and try to do all you can to make it count? What more can you do than to feel a sense of responsbility that this privilege must be put to good use?
This is the last station on the line. I don’t know what will happen after university. But perhaps that’s jumping the gun. I just got here. I‘m four cycles of laundry in. The idea of these three years going by too fast is both scary and incredibly tangible. To make everyday count is perhaps as unrealistic as counting everyday (a little bit of chiasmus for you), but to take the opportunities as they come is almost a right upon me. I feel I must.
So seeing those blossoms, walking to meet a friend for lunch, battling the wind that blew my wool scarf in my face (repeatedly), noticing how the world was blue like one side of a pair of 3D glasses, looking at the turrets and churches and stone walls is imbued with special meaning. I feel I must drink it in, take pictures of everything repeatedly, try to capture it all.
I realise i have said little of my actual degree and thats partially because most of my time is consumed with it anyway and this kind of writing is my supposed reprieve. But there are definitely things to be said, criticisms to be made, posts to be posted on that. I’ll save it for when I have enough words—enough of the right words—to do it justice.
Special shout out to the friends I’ve made; who knew you could find sisters in the space of a month? Shout out to the lecturers who have actually held my attention for a -full- hour, and shout out to random conversations that can spin your bearings on life. This blank page is slowly filling up and I hope you enjoy my words.
Zaynub x
