The car is driving at a
fast speed. I almost want it to slow down. I want to turn back time and rewind.
Back to months ago, years ago, to when I was a child. Back to when university
was just a place that old people went, old old people, girls that had weird
bumps on their chest for some reason that I didn't understand, and boys that
had prickly faces. When money was just something I won in Monopoly or asked Mum
for when I wanted to buy an ice-cream from the ice-cream van.
How did I get this far?
It seems like yesterday I
was eight, and now I am eighteen and about to embark on one of the most
scariest adventures of my life.
It is September 29th
and I am starting university.
I glance in front and see
the back of my parent’s heads. Dad’s is balding with patches of grey hair, and
Mum’s is bright blonde and her hair hangs in wavy cascades down her back. Next
to me is my little sister, Rosa, she is finding today very exciting, she’s only
nine, and I know it will hit her that I am not going to be there to plaster her
knee when she falls over and give her jelly babies when she is feeling ill.
Today is just an exciting day. It is not until this evening when she is
snuggled up in bed, with her lemon yellow hair in strands around her, cuddling
her stuffed elephant, waiting for me to come and read her a bedtime story that
a tear will dribble down her milky white face and she will cry out for ‘mummy’.
I watch the streets go by,
the houses and shops, my rational side trying to remember the route and work
out what shops will be useful in the coming weeks, months and years, but my
mind is turning to jelly, a wobbly mess of nerves and adrenaline.
Suddenly my heart skips a
beat as the sign for: TANBRIDGE CITY UNIVERSITY.
I’m almost there.
The car is packed full to
the brim. Next to me is my guitar, and beside that one of my five bags stuffed
with my belongings. Mum has stocked up on food for me for the first week or so,
so that I don’t starve to death as I’ve paid for self-catered.
We drive into the campus
car park and swiftly park the car. I feel a stab of guilt for never actually
learning to drive.
My family start to
evacuate the car, but I just sit there, glued to the seat, terrified to move.
Five minutes or so goes by and then Mum opens the car door and pops her head in
and says “Love, are you alright”?
I’m about to whisper “Yes”
but instead a flurry of tears gush down my face.
Mum leans in and pulls me
close to her, I can smell her strong lavender perfume, and although I hate the
fragrance it just makes more tears spark in my eyes, because I know I will miss
it.
I clamber out of the car
and smooth down my top, I have dressed casual in skinny jeans and a short
sleeved green t-shirt. Mum went mad at me, telling me to wear some more
clothes, or I’ll freeze to death, but I’m boiling with nerves.
