Wake Up To Health

So, I’m living back in halls, as a student again. I’ve dived head first into a world entirely new and unfamiliar and you know I couldn’t be happier.

From the day I moved in some eight weeks ago, my life has been drumming to a new beat – a faster, more exciting, less predictable one. With little time to adapt, I seemed to just appear in a distinctly different arena: new city, surroundings, bedroom, friends, course, lifestyle, routines… I said goodbye to the country bumpkin me that was becoming and hello to the new life, noticing that not a single bit of continuity was supporting me. It was clear that it was down to me – was I going to sink or swim?

For the first few days, I bobbed along on the surface, minding my way and seeing what cropped up. I was settling into my new living arrangement, spending long days at university, forming quick and sturdy friendships, laughing a lot, whilst all the time trying to make sense of the latest me.

I observed various aspects of myself emerge, from what I now know as a deep hibernation; all sorts of language, behaviour and means of self-expression. Suddenly, I was no longer hiding myself behind an overly positive curtain, choosing which emotions were good and holding in the so-called bad. Now I was dipping in to a whole palette of emotions, including anger, frustration, indifference and sadness.

On week two, I sunk. Crying wholeheartedly down the phone to my family, I realised how lost I felt. The rollercoaster I was holding so tightly onto was all too much for me. I wanted off the ride, immediately. I longed for the continuity back in my life, the peace and quiet. I put my sense of bewilderment down to bad decision making: did I really want to train as a primary school teacher? Had I stepped onto a path that I didn’t want to go down?

I soon realised that what I thought was me acting out of my nature, was actually the very opposite. I was being more true to myself than I had for a while – I was letting myself shine through, uncensored. “It’s ok to be me, to be whole and feel the way I do”, I cried.

What a relief I felt at that moment, when I let myself off the hook for being myself, in understanding that things don’t need to be so rosy. I took down the curtain that day and have been swimming head above the water since.