When sometimes negative can be positive

Change comes to us all, in whatever format you might imagine. Change can be bitter, it can be worthwhile, it can be terrifying, and sometimes it can be just about the best thing you ever did.

Perhaps where you live might change, who you’re dating, what job you’re doing, or with whom you are friends. We can choose to accept it or fight desperately, although the latter seems rather futile to me.

Try not to roll your eyes; I am perfectly aware that I am only twenty-one and have plenty more to do in my life, but here is my take on things:

Moving on used to strike fear into me, I make no apologies. I never wanted to leave primary school, secondary school (when the time came to it), move to university. I hated drifting apart from or downright falling out with friends – and don’t believe that I enjoy it now – and not being comfortable in the new things I was doing, much preferring the comfortable and the regular. I could tell you exactly what it was that began the shift in my perspective but, no matter how open I may be on this blog, sometimes I feel unable to share everything.

But by the time September of last year rolled around, I took stock of what my life was in Wolverhampton, and realised that there was nothing and no one here that would not still be here when I came back in April 2013 (except, it unfortunately turned out, the family cat, Midnight). What did I have to lose by throwing myself into something new and entirely different – I had no choice but to go abroad anyway or I would fail my degree, so at least I should make the most of it. I have always had an active imagination, and have always dreamed of particular aspects to a lifestyle for myself and at the age of twenty finally realised exactly how they will not fall into place just by thinking wistfully about them.

Doing what is new (and by extension what may make you feel uneasy) can be a huge step, and I am by no means advocating thoughtless action, well not often anyway, but you can come out of the other side with wider perspectives, a whole heap of new friends – but let them stand up, it isn’t necessary for them to stay in that heap – and improved ideas of how to get where you want to go. You probably will, like I know I have, learn things about yourself and learn how to acknowledge and accept others.

It is not necessarily easy to take change on, no matter how much you may embrace it, or – at least secretly – realise the benefit. If you are anything like me, you will be prone to remembering, analysing and trips down memory lane, and these can hurt. I have yet to learn how to stop that hurting and I doubt that I ever will. I can’t stop myself reminiscing yet, apart from making myself ridiculously busy. But here’s what I’m trying: remember the good bits, even remember the bad, accept them for what they were, accept that that was the situation then, and this is the situation now. Take what you can from then, there is no need to abandon everything from those times. Then move on. There is a different and bigger world out there and there is so much you and I both could do in it.

(I was right, just so you know. Not everything changes - even at twenty-one there is little better than gossiping with a best friend all afternoon and pretending you're not eating all the junk food the two of you just bought at the corner shop.)