New month, same circumstances, or thereabouts. Over two months have passed since graduation and I’ve been home for nearly that amount of time, too. I’ve had a temporary job, and I’ve been paid, so that’s good, but I seem to be no closer to finding anything stable or semi-permanent. Every so often I find an opportunity that seems near perfect, until I find out that it’s an unpaid position. There are plenty of imperfect opportunities, too, but I’m not having much luck with them either. C’est la vie.
I’ve been keeping in touch with university friends, though. Contact has been frequent, more so than I dared to hope, although I guess that’s an advantage of attending a university where approximately 98.6% of students live south of Watford. But regardless, people have been making an effort, and it’s nice. Terrible for my ailing bank account, but nice.
Still, there have been some low points. Or, not so much low, but flat. Graduate life, at the moment, is a plateau. There have been good things, too, of course. I went on holiday with my parents, I joined a gym, I got the aforementioned temp job. On top of that, I’m incredibly privileged to have been able to move back home with my parents in the first place. My unemployment doesn’t stop there being a roof over my head or food on my plate. I’m extremely lucky.
It’s strange, now, to look at the events of Freshers’ Week back in Exeter that are being documented on social media. I feel a sense of nostalgia, even though (like most things) it never lived up to the hype throughout my three years. Last year, in particular, I burnt out and my mental health went down the metaphorical toilet. I spread myself too thinly and definitely didn’t eat enough vegetables (an impressive feat when you’re vegan). The first half of my first term of final year, in fact, was defined by the presence of my mental health down the metaphorical toilet. And yet, I can’t take off the rose-tinted glasses. But I can recognise that they’re there, which is better than nothing. And who knows, maybe this time next year I’ll be looking back on this period of my life with the same nostalgia. Or, hopefully, I’ll have disposed of the rose-tinted glasses entirely.
EMILY GARBUTT 