That Girl from Derwent dwells on the value of religion this Christmas.
That Girl from Derwent has learned a few more things about prejudice since moving up North.
That Girl From Derwent reckons if you're going to be offensive, you should find a better reason.
That Girl from Derwent considers why it is that some words have wider implications than others.
Against the wishes of my parents, against the protestations of my bank balance (rent paid on an empty house would have been more efficient than rent plus food and bills) I decided to stay in York this summer. I was excited. Okay, so I would be spending ridiculous amounts of money, I didn’t have a job and the kitchen had no kettle, toaster or microwave. Plus there was no Internet in the house and TV signal limited at best… but it was freedom, right? Three months of independent living with my favourite people. Screw the rose-tinted memories of my time in Derwent, this was where the real fun was to be had. I was older, wiser and with plenty more experience of life, right?
A month in and I felt like I was on top of the world. I could really do anything I liked, when I liked. Work and revision and that essay were just a distant tug in the back of my sunshine-and-daisy-filled mind.
So when my dad asked if I wanted to go home for the weekend, I reluctantly prepared myself for a blitz visit. Friday to Sunday. In and out and back in York before you can say Anatidaephobia. I’d go, I’d see everyone, make the obligatory house calls, catch up on my sleep and nutritional food… and then get the train back Sunday night ready for more fun-filled York-times. Sorted.
Except it didn’t exactly work out like that.
1. However much I like to pretend I’m an independent, urban and exciting young woman, I’m still a little girl at heart who likes cuddling up on the sofa with a pillow and watching kids movies on the TV on a Sunday afternoon.
2. I stay away from my parents because I miss them too much. The same goes for my sister, my grandparents and other relatives. I love my family, I actually truly do. I love talking to them, hanging out with them - grandparents, in my opinion, are hugely underrated.
3. I did not catch up on my sleep. I couldn’t sleep at night for thinking about what would be happening in York and worrying about the future - being away from the distracting lights of the city made me remember that these is, in fact, a real world and I will be expected to enter it alarmingly soon. Also, it was hard to lie in when the folks get up at 6.
4. I ended up eating everything because it was free, not to mention incredibly tasty. Result? However nutritional it is, eating until you feel you are going to burst, for three days straight, is not a good feeling.
As I write this sat on the floor of a train, the feeling gone from my feet, I realise I am torn between two worlds. Of course, I knew this already - even wrote about it in my first year - but the conclusions I draw now are significantly different.
I can’t have everything. If I want to be the little girl at home with her parents, I can’t be the independent young woman living with her boyfriend and her friends. I cannot be everything all at once: my head can’t deal with it. If I mixed the two, as my younger self suggested, I think I would go insane. We can’t be two people at once - surely I have to let one of them go?
Maybe this is what growing up is all about, realising that you do have to let things go, in order to make room for the new developments. After all, you wouldn’t just keep adding new stuff to an essay, would you, without editing the old.
I can’t believe I used an essay allusion. Maybe I need to graduate.
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