Just A Small Town Girl

So I have officially finished compulsory education. And writing that sentence down was one of the most surreal experiences of my life. Obviously it didn't exactly come as a surprise; it's not like we all turned up to school one day and the headmaster stood up in assembly and said "Hey, you're never coming back again! Surprise!": that would probably have been met with ironic cheering. But of course, I've known I was leaving for...well, about fourteen years. Seven years of primary school, five years of secondary education and two years of sixthform. Finished. Done. Completed. Finite. Weird.

It's not just that though; growing up seems to have really snuck up on me these past few weeks. I was so focused on exams, revision, planning and preparing for my future, I forgot how close it all was. My last ever A-Level exam was last Friday, in two days it's my 18th birthday (when I become a legal adult), less than a week after which I head off on my first ever no-parents/responsible-adults holiday, and a couple of months after that I move out. Into a new city, with new people, to a new kind of learning and an entirely new experience. And, at this moment in time, I don't even know which city. And that's terrifying. So terrifying, that right now it doesn't really seem real, just...overwhelming. And I just don't know if I'm ready.

Okay, fair enough, some days, I think "Dear God, bring it on. Get me out of this familiar town with these familiar places and familiar people." Admittedly, usually on a day when one of the familiar people has pissed me off. But in the sense of leaving, I think I am ready. I love my friends, and I love my family, but I need to meet some new people. I need some new problems to face, not the same old bollocks. I need some new challenges, not recycling the same tried-and-tested methods. I need some new experiences, not the same night replaying in front of my helpless eyes like an unstoppable Groundhog Day. It's not that I'm sick of what I have, I just need more. I'm too comfortable in my environment, too comfortable with everything and everyone in it, and it feels like cabin fever. I lose my temper faster, act tetchier and get less excited about upcoming events - nothing has changed, except me. And I haven't even changed, I don't think, I've just grown (that sounded tragically hippy-ish). I hope it's not just me. I don't think it is just me.

But then I think of all the things I'll miss. My mum, my best friend, my bed, my comfortable, routine life. Because I know that I can do this; I have a place here. Admittedly, sometimes that place is as the bossy and tactless one, but sometimes it's the listener, or the comforter, or the shoulder to cry on. Starting off in a new place I'll be place-less and persona-less. That's good, in that it gives you the chance to reinvent and better yourself, but it sucks in that (for a while, at least) I won't have a place, a role to play, a person to be, an essential part of the eclectic mismatch that makes a friendship. Now that is terrifying.

And there are SO MANY things I worry about; questions that won't get answered until it's too late to go back, big and obvious, or small and personal. Will I end up where I want to go? Did I chose the right place? Will I make friends? Will I like the people I live with? Will I fit in? Will my friends keep in touch with me, without prompting? How am I going to earn enough money to pay for living in a city without a parent paying for food, a roof and (arguably most importantly) central heating? Will I embarass myself when my new friends/flatmates witness my pitiful attempts at cooking? Will it irritate them that I have to wash my hair every day in the single shower shared between five or six of us? Am I going to have to get a job, or could I struggle by on loans and wishful thinking? What the hell is an ISA, and do I have to figure out financial paperwork(which, I'm sorry, may as well be written in Ancient Greek)? Do I have to register with a new doctor/dentist/optician? How much of my own cooking paraphernalia do I need to take? Are my books going to be horribly expensive? Will I enjoy my course? Will my university days be the best of my life, or a disappointing train wreck? Will the shake-up be too much for my sheltered and content brain to handle? Or will it be the best decision I'll ever make?

That's about 2% of the questions that flutter mockingly through my mind constantly, and I can't answer any of them. I'm afraid that I have developed a small-town mindset, that I've become too comfortable with these people, and this place, and this life. I'm scared that I'll never feel as comfortable and safe with these exciting new people as I do with the loved ones around me now. Some of these worries seem trivial and inconsequential, but they're there, and they'll stay there for the foreseeable future.

I take a lot of comfort from knowing that everyone else in my situation must feel the same way. And I take a lot of comfort from knowing that the people I'm embarking on this excitingly petrifying new journey with are in the same situation as me. And I take a bit of comfort from my mother's oft-repeated mantra that "It'll be fine." And I hope it will be.

But I guess we'll see.