The blog post below was written by Sophie, a Graduate Volunteer at Youthscape working alongside the SelfharmUK team. She hopes you find her thoughts around reflections helpful.
I’ve always found reflection difficult. Looking back over the past year is a big ask, because so much has changed. This has been the most transitional year in my life since I moved from my home town of Tunbridge Wells to Luton, over three years ago. I graduated university, moved out of halls and into a host family’s home, and started my first full time job. And with that huge shift in lifestyle, social circle, what’s expected of me, and pressures, there’s a measure of responsibility on me to say something profound about 2017.
This year has been a strange one. Losing the comfort of university was incredibly hard. I was very happy there, living with my friends, feeling as comfortable with my lecturers as I do with my own parents, staying up until the early hours of the morning with my friends, hanging in the kitchen, talking about our favourite TV show until the sun rose. As a writer, it’s not often I’m lost for words, but finding a way to describe how difficult it was to leave university is impossible.
So, that’s one of the most important things this year has taught me – quite literally, how to move on. I had no choice but to learn, because it was the year of my graduation. Bar locking myself in my student halls over the summer and still attending lectures in the new academic year, there was nothing I could do to keep things the way they were.
I graduated with a first in Creative Writing, and was blessed enough to move straight from university to a full-time voluntary position at Youthscape. To say that it’s been easy would be an outright lie. I was having a discussion with my old lecturer the other day, explaining how it’s been at work, and she said it sounded like it’s been a culture shock for me. And she’s absolutely right.
That’s the second thing I’ve learned in 2017 – how to adjust to the challenges life throws at you, when you start living outside of your bubble. I’ve needed to take on responsibilities in my job that I never thought I would be capable of. I’ve found that I’m actually not bad at leading small groups of young people, and I can cope with a 40 hour a week schedule! Where I’ve had issues with that schedule, I’ve talked to the necessary people, and got things fixed.
Speaking of the necessary people, I have realised, this year, that I’m surrounded by a wonderful support network. People from church, my family, my friends, my lecturers, and my new colleagues, have all helped me in even the smallest ways. I know that, going into 2018, I will continue to utilise the people around me, and take the help they offer without guilt. Everyone needs help now and again, and there’s no shame in that.
I remember seeing 2017 in at my university halls. I was the only one there, because nobody else had moved in yet, and I was standing in our kitchen with a large mug of tea, watching the fireworks, feeling sorry for myself because I was alone. I knew that I was going to start working at Youthscape after graduating, but graduation itself seemed like a lifetime away. And now, here I am, 11 months later, having graduated and moved out of halls, writing this post in the middle of a beautiful open-plan office. It’s funny, how these things happen.
Looking back on 2017, how would you say it’s been for you? Mostly positive, or mostly negative? And, moving into 2018, which lessons from this year do you want to bring?