If this is an end, I have no idea where to begin.

I’ve always wanted to have one of those moments, walking away from a place for the last time, when you know it’s the last time. When you’ve cleared your desk, painstakingly removed every post-it note you scrawled so fast god knows how long ago, handed in the key, walked down the stairs out of the building with the knowledge that you will not be returning the next day, or in a few months, or maybe not ever at all. In my head, there is music playing, there’s a slow turn-of-the head, a last glance over the shoulder and then that long, panoramic shot as I walk away, for the last time. None of that happened of course when I handed in my last essay at uni. I was entirely empty of feelings, nether excited nor sad, just occupied by a thought – how many pages upon pages of sentences answering obscure questions have I printed out (and then reprinted with my name spelt correctly), how many chapters have I photocopied (and then recopied because the photocopier stuffed it up the first time), how many pens have I chewed up here, how many staples, highlighters, bull clips? I can tell you exactly how many bull clips in fact; two - one to hold each copy of my unbound dissertation together. A dissertation surrended with only a little relief, and a lot of panic. Walking away I wondered to myself, how many books have I borrowed, ‘read’ in the cafe and returned late? How many words have I forced together with poor grammar and a complete disregard for the argument they amounted too? How many coffees have I had in this place, on the run, in the late afternoon sun, by the library moat; cheap and sugary, fuelling hours of procrastination and intellectual duals. I have probably spent months on buses and trains and cycling, back and forth. In storms, in searing heat, in wind and driving rain, wearing headphones, giggling at my book, highlighting countless journal articles... “And all for what?” I hear you shout, waving your arms, throwing exclamation marks. To learn, I answer defensively, to do what interested me, to understand the world a little better. To get cheap public transport, to lie under the trees by the river all afternoon discussing life in all its intricacies. I could console myself with the argument that my Bachelor of Arts with Honours in History improves my employment prospects, but that, at least most people would have me believe, is probably wishful thinking. So here’s the fact – at this moment, sitting by the fire in my aunties farmhouse in New Zealand, while it rains and howls outside, I have reached the very edge of my plan, and I have no idea what it was all for. I am goalless, ambitionless, with not a tiny blinking clue. I’ve only the vague notion that university for me, is now over, and the big questionmark of the rest of my life is in fact, the present moment.

To be continued....