How the first term of University went. A letter from Jan 18, 2023

Dear FutureMe, What the first term of uni taught me. Well as much as I can say. It's difficult to say whether uni is the best time of your life. I don't really believe anyone who says it was amazing or perfect. Because essentially you are saying moving out on your own, being finally independent financially emotionally, etc, and moving to a world of complete strangers is the most amazing thing. That 3 or however many years you've been at uni have been as a whole amazing. Without uni mentioned I don't think anyone can say 3 straight years of their life were purely amazing. You can have the best moments of your life next door to the deepest darkest times I've realized. 2022 indeed taught me that. I have a way better feeling for semester 2 I feel like I'm getting myself back. Sometimes even when you least expect it home really is the rehab you need. Sometimes just sometimes you find therapy in the most unexpected places. Sometimes therapy isn't sitting in an office with a counselor sometimes it's just sleeping in your own bed, sometimes it's in the for of a thank you card from a kid you look after at work, and sometimes therapy comes with familiarity. I think you can predict the way your life is going to go. Sometimes life will really surprise you for the good and for the bad. But as I once heard life is 10% what happens to you and 90% how you react to it. University hmm what place it is just like I expected and nothing at all. Its easy to mourn the life you could be living had something not happened its easy to mourn those missed experiences. But funnily enough life always tends to kind of work out eventually. As cliche as this sounds the grass is green where you water it and trust me 2023 is currently showing me that's the way life is going to be for a bit. Do I regret this I was thinking before I wrote this letter. Do I wish I took another year out travelled more maybe even made that move to Australia. Honeslty I cant firmly answer its too early to know I guess. Maybe come back in a year or two and ill be able to give you a more detailed answer. Truth is your not the kid that first set off for her gap year almost three years ago now. You changed you're dreams changed. Success to you means happiness rather then the biggest bestest career. i think that's what I'm really struggling with is staying in one place. I guess over the last two years I felt so free and really lives my life to the fullest purely living in the moment. I think somehow along the way I got so stuck into the present I forgot there was a future for me and future with hopes and dreams. What would I say to 8 year old sabrina. i tink id say that people tell you on your gap year you go and you find yourself although that was ever my aim I just wanted to travel and see the world before bing sucked into what is the education system and career. I guess I knew id catch the travel bug and hoped that I would so I wouldn't follow the typical movements of life. Why is it that I feel like I've lost myself more or well not lost myself but I've never been so unsure about life before. I don't think uni is for me I think its what sixth form sabrina would thrive in but to be sucked into a system like this after feeling so free and happy for so long. it almost feels as if I've gone backwards. But I know this is what will help me ans my life and the first few months were tricky so no doubt fogged by judgment of this experience. I'm boarding a flight to lisbon then to Budapest in a few weeks I guess this is my first attempt of trying to live that life that feel like I've lost since I've been at university. Truth is I put my all into this experience and I still am but I cant lie staying in the same place for 3 years simply isn't me so they time off I do have I'm going to go and search for part of that freedom again. and hopefully I find that feeling that lived we me during those split sunsets, in the first sips of aperol and on the last plane back reflecting on summer. Somewehre deep down I think I settled for this life. if I'm being honest we didn't pick my uni town for all the right reasons I think I knew at the time to. i think the idea of me not doing a study abroad feels a bit troubling. but you cant do two things you really want at the same time. I also relaised on the way to reaching your dreams the sacrofoce is immense. YOu will go through a lot on the way to achieving what you want. Nothing is just purely perfect you can have perfect moments but they are just moments life is imperfect and its meant to be. For everything amazing there will be something equally troubling. But you will get through. Now I've been thinking about when I want to send this letter and think I want to send it to third-year me. The first term of last year at uni. I would love for you to write a reply and tell me all about how the experience is going/went. I believe insight is always bittersweet providing a rose intend version of events. But also a certain level of wiseness with it too. so here are some notes for me in a little while down the road. Here it goes I hope you're doing well. Like really I hope you're doing well. A lot has happened during a small amount o time the last few years have been tough giving you your best and worst moments. I hope that fog that encapsulates you for days leaving you unable to move or even fathom functioning for days at a time has gone or well lessened. I hope you don't have any more days wasted lying in bed with such thick fog in your head that you lose a bit of yourself. I hope you find the magic in music again, I hope you see colors in the world again not just see color but really see and feel the vibrancy like you used to. I hope you can trust yourself to stay and be alone again and maybe even really enjoy your own company again. I know that got hard recently and that your feel like you couldn't be alone made you feel as if you lost the spark in your life and lost your independence. I hope you trust yourself and your instincts. one life event doesn't need to rule over your life. I hope you do things that scare you again. remember that was the secret to the best last 2 years of your life. you love adventure and spontaneity and if that situation you endured dint **** you enough you losing these parts of you ****** you even more. Do you still play frisbee? how is the degree going? don't worry if it's not a first I know it's not as easy as just studying more sometimes their real life matters that affect our grades. ut just dowell enough that you'll be proud of the outcome and that you can get to where you want to go. if you are happy i want you to really soak in the feeling and remember a time that you didn't have many moment of this so really don't take it for granted. Lather in the sunshine of what life is. And if the clouds have started pouring over again. Know that you are not alone, remember that therapy sometimes comes from your small hometown . i want to know who is still in your life. Uni meant ou moved away and definitely don't see anyone nearly as much as you did before. who do you still speak to? where ae they in their lives? life can change a lot in a few months let alone a few year t then again years can go by and it seems as if nothing has changed at all . so who knows what ill be experiencing on the other side of this reading. I love you and know that you can do anything and everything you put your mind to you've already shown that. so go on tell me what life is about now!i need an update ASAP. Good luck with the ddissertation (if you don't end up doing a placement year) and remember eyes on the prize (that saying got you though those first initial weeks).