Reflecting on Oxford

It’s an odd benchmark, to judge how far you’ve come by how you feel when watching Lewis. But I was watching a rerun last night and I realised that each shot of the stone streets of Oxford, each panoramic of the Radcliffe camera, made me feel light, happy, proud and nostalgic. 

Watching Lewis hasn’t always made me feel like that. I went through some very dark times at Oxford - times I’ve written about on this blog. I used to want to cry when I saw shots of the library, of my college. It was a place I felt alienated from. It was a place that didn’t feel like home anymore. But somehow, yesterday, I rewound a scene which was filmed in my college and watched it over and over with a full heart, thinking ‘that was my home for a while’.

I have always been someone who has attached feelings to places. In my first year I lived in a building called Florey which one might describe as having a marmite effect. Some people, my friends included, loved it and thought it was an architectural masterpiece. Some hated it - it was built in the 1970s and listed, so hadn’t been renovated for a very long time. Think silverfish. Think cork floors that soaked up whatever you poured on them. Think underfloor heating, but not the cool kind - the kind that either roasts you alive when it’s on, or turns you into a human icicle when it’s off. 

Gazing wistfully at Florey with some friends earlier this year.

Some of my most formative experiences as a young adult happened in that building. I was young, naive. I threw myself into friendships like throwing myself off a diving board. I fell in love, twice. I had my heart broken, twice. I laughed, and played records, and danced and drank quite a lot of ginger wine even though I didn’t really like it. On my first night in that room, I invited back about 25 people, and we all crammed on the floor and drank cheap wine, and I felt like maybe Oxford would be the place where I could leave the shy girl from school behind and become the kind of person who hosted pre drinks, and was always surrounded by people. On my last night in that room, after I’d packed up all of my stuff, I sat in it for 2 hours and cried. I found it really hard to part with the joy I’d experienced there.

One of my first nights in Florey - drunk in the stairwell. 

2 of my best pals.

A party I threw in Christmas of first year. 

A group spoon in my room on my birthday.

Cue second year, and a room in which I had the worst year of my life so far. It was in an annexe far away from college, and in it I was mostly miserable and isolated from many of my friends. I sometimes didn’t leave my room for days. In that year I did the hardest set of exams of my life, and went to sleep in that room after each one. I experienced trauma and lost friends.  I didn’t feel like the kind of girl who hosted pre drinks anymore. I felt like someone who didn’t matter. I sometimes thought about leaving Oxford forever because it made me so miserable. 

I was not sad to leave that room. But I did have formative experiences there. I learned that even when you feel like you’ve lost almost everyone, the people who matter show up. One day when I felt so broken I couldn’t unpack my stuff, my friend came and sat with me and said “Right, tell me where everything goes”. I sat on the bed in tears and watched him set up my room for me. I injured my leg and my friend - who hates chick flicks more than anyone I’ve ever met - came and watched one with me, because she knew I’d be sad that I couldn’t play tennis. I learned in that year how to trust myself above anyone else, and how to stop being the person I thought everyone wanted me to be and just lean in to who I really was, whether or not everyone liked it. I met some wonderful, strong women who helped me to find my own strength, to speak up about things I felt passionately about and trust my own conviction. 

i don't actually have many pictures from second year because I was not a very happy bean, 

but good things did happen! Such as my college ball...

...And this double rainbow!

My third year was better. I lived on the ground floor in the back quad of my college, with two beautiful sash windows, and listened to the sounds of peoples voices drifting past every day. I was still sad sometimes, but I no longer felt isolated. In that year I had my first serious relationship. I discovered meditation. I started this blog. I went back to counselling because I sometimes felt fine and sometimes felt like I was going to explode with anger or sadness, and realised that meant I wasn’t actually fine. I learned how to cope with feelings rather than repressing them. I met some new friends, and leaned in to being vulnerable with new people. I had a tutor who started to make me feel like I had academic potential. I started moving forwards again. 

My college husband/platonic soulmate. 

3 angels.

My college granddaughter/best pal (like honestly I am so grateful for this girl)

If third year was better, this year - my last year - was my best by far. I learned how to be happy, but deeply happy this time, not the naive giddy headiness of my first year which was undercut by sadness and self-loathing. I found my confidence and my voice, both personally and academically. The anger and bitterness I’d nursed since my second year started to subside, and was replaced by joy. I ended my first serious relationship. I started my second. I ran a half marathon. I reconnected with some of my best friends. I wrote a piece of coursework I felt really passionate about and thought 'hey, I could keep doing this for a while'. I found direction in my life. I started to really believe in myself, probably for the first time ever. Instead of trying to be the kind of person that hosted pre drinks, I stopped trying to be anyone but myself and spent quality time with people that I love. A lot of that time was quiet, and involved sitting and reading and drinking tea, or watching netflix, or just talking. I learned that sometimes I like that more than partying, and that's okay. After all this time, I learned to listen to myself and be honest with myself about what I like and what I want.

Moving in on my last first day 

Happy in the snow 

This year it wasn’t my room that really mattered, because it was the year that I fell in love with Oxford again. This summer, when I left, my heart wasn’t wrenched by the thought of leaving my room, but the city. The streets that had at points seemed so hostile felt familiar again. I reclaimed Oxford as mine, as my home. It started as a place where I reinvented myself, became a place where I felt so awful I wanted to leave forever, and ended up as the place where I discovered myself, a place I didn’t want to leave.   

Grateful to this guy for loving Oxford so much it was infectious, 

and letting me see it through his eyes 

Grateful I graduated with these people by my side 

Grateful I got to call this beautiful college my home!

I used to wonder what it was like for tourists to look at the Bodleian library, or my college, and just see them as beautiful buildings. For me the library was the place I cried in first year because I'd missed an essay deadline (lol), the place I'd stressed in so many times, the place where I'd found my love for my subject and my academic confidence. My college was the place where I'd rushed around, late for tutorials, where I'd eaten every day, where I'd sat in my best friend's room and laughed, or cried, where I'd slipped out of late night sessions in the library to have a drink in the college bar, where I'd come to sit with our chaplain and discuss life countless times. When I see those places on the television now, I see them as a tourist would see them - beautiful - but also as places where I lived, places where I grew up.

Have loved libs and gorming since day 1

I am happy cause I nearly didn't catch it

That’s how far I’ve come. My four years at Oxford, the ups and downs, attached to the places I lived, the streets I walked, the libraries I sat in, the rooms I laughed in. Even though I’ve left now, I’ll carry that sense of home, of self, with me into the next chapter. I feel lucky that I also get to carry with me the friendships of the people that were by my side through it all. 

I'll leave you all with this beautiful sunset - 

one of the last pictures I took of Oxford as a student.