I had to literally DRAG myself out of bed this morning, and into the shower.  I had to literally DRAG my boyfriend out of bed, and I forced him to walk to campus with me.  I walked up my street, through the Army barracks (yes, I live in England, not Iraq! The public footpath runs between two Army buildings.) and across the fields, and I recieved a phonecall.  Now, I knew before I answered the phone that it would be my Mother.  She was telling me all about my Dad being ill, and him having operations and being in hospital.  Now, I am reasonably clever, and I could tell that the whole time she was hinting that I need to go home, go and see my Dad, and that we all sit down and have a ‘proper chat.’  The problem is, I am nearing the end of my third year of University, I have two 6,000 essays due in on the 22nd April, and my dissertation in on the 2nd June.  I am starting all of the preperation work for those now.  I don’t mean to sound horrible, but I can’t afford the time or the money to go home.

My parents perfectly understand this all, mind – they’re not exactly pressuring me into going home, but I feel obligated to be at home, just for personal reasons.   I am feeling really shitty at the moment, I’ve bottled stuff up a bit too much.  Whilst Paul knows my Dad is ill, it’s not like we have massive conversations about it, I usually brush him off – and my housemates don’t really know much about the situation at all.  I wanted to tell a couple of them all of tonight, but I’ve either been lying on the sofa, staring at the T.V and being upset, or being made laugh by their daft antics.  I feel like I need a bit of support – but don’t really know where to start with them, or who to even ask.

I’ve not really had the best experience over the last 3 years, I think University has been a curse.  A week before my A Level Results were due, my Grandad died, very unexpectadly at the age of 64 – then the funeral was the day after my results came out, and I found that I had got into my first choice University.  The second or third day at University, I’m still settling in, and I find out my Grandma (my Grandad’s ex-wife) had also passed away, though I knew this was going to happen sooner or later.  In my second year, my Nanna is really ill, then she passes away, I also was expecting this, but it doesn’t mean that it still wasn’t upsetting.  Then my cat, Smudge dies – I know it sounds silly but after school, and in holidays I used to look forward to going home, and cuddling her upto my face, and hearing her purr. Now, in my third and final year, I found out at the beggining of this term that my Dad is very ill, and I’ve spent the last 9 weeks wondering what is going to happen, as he’s been in and out of hospital.  So pretty crappy really.
Oh, I mustn’t forget to add the break-up with a boyfriend of 2-and-a-half years, the other boyfriend that nearly died and had to spend time in intensive care, and my current boyfriend who drives me crazy.  Though, when all things are put into perspective – he’s not as bad as I ever make him out to be.

So yeah, I think University has been one big curse for me.  I’ve lost more friends than I’ve made, and even though I live with 6 other people, sometimes I realise that I’ve never felt more alone in my life.

I don’t want sympathy or pity, I just felt like documenting all of that today.  A lot of the time I want to write stuff like this out for all of my housemates, maybe they would see why sometimes all I want to do is sit around and not have to think, or move.

On the whole, I do have a good deal of ‘down’ moments, but I consider myself to be a moderatly happy person.  I have a boyfriend I adore, and the people around me make me laugh.  I’m beating the system next year by not getting a graduate job: I’m going to do what I want to do for a while.  Perhaps work my way up in a bar career? Perhaps get taken on as a trainee for a big web-design company?  Who can say, all I know is that I’ve learnt that life is FAR too short to not experience the things that you want to.  At 20 I feel I am too young to go into teaching, and too young to know if I even want to teach at all!

Hey, don’t worry – I’m not going off to top myself – i’m just glad I can vent somewhere.  I was hoping all this would make me cry, but I just feel quite numb at the moment.  I think I’ll go off to bed now, night guys. xxx