Change is something that we all go through, and no I am not talking about when they run out of your favourite cereal so you have to opt for the off brand. I am talking about BIG change.
For me this looked like packing my life into a single suitcase and flying to another continent to start somewhat of a new life in university in the USA. Here ‘English tea’ is a lie and pretty much everything is fried to some capacity.
It has taken me over 3 years of preparation to get here, and so you would think that I would be extremely comfortable with the idea by now. And don’t get me wrong, if you would have asked me a month ago if I was ready I would have said yes, but it was only until I landed in JFK airport that it really hit me, I was not as ready as I thought I was at all!
That first night was really hard, for the first time, I was regretting this decision and continuously questioned whether I was going to be able to cope. The first day was just as hard, waking up in a new place surrounded by people and voices then I in no way recognised, but then, someone came up to me and said ‘hello’ (I watched a Uni tips video that said to sit in the common area to try and get the attention of someone else wanting to make a friend, and it works! Highly recommend) from then on, my time here has got better and better every day, now I am only a week in and I absolutely love it and I couldn’t think of anything better!
You may be asking yourself, “why should I care?” and while that is a very respectable and understandable question, I will tell you why!
In the wake of a global pandemic, we are all going through change unlike any cereal substitute, we are all going from spending countless months in our houses with limited contact with those outside of direct families to having to resume with our everyday lives. Just like your first-year t university, the first couple days are pretty difficult, you don’t recognise anyone, you aren’t too sure what you are meant to be doing and it can all be pretty overwhelming as a whole. But, just like this same experience, after a couple days, this becomes our new normal and we learn to appreciate and embrace the changes (without the student debt though hopefully!)
So, here we go again, what do I want you to take from this? That change is difficult and REALLY scary, but everything new and different always is! After a short while, everything that you once thought of as scary will be normal and you will look about on past you and laugh. So, please don’t be scared of this ‘post-covid’ world, and even if you are, that fear will not last forever, I promise.