The Day Has Come

8 months of waiting is finally over. 8 months of wanting this day to come more than anything I've ever wanted, ever. 8 months of waiting for the promised and rumoured brilliance of a university lifestyle. It's here. I have no more waiting to do. Tomorrow is it. It starts here.

In truth, I am terrified. Being nervous is natural, (as I have been told so many times today), but I'm not actually sure I've been so nervous in my life. I remember the times I've been very nervous. Before my first ever play performed at a professional theatre, my first ever cup final in adult football, the first ever match I refereed, the day of my GCSE results, (which ironically was never the case come A-Level time). All of these times have been so nerve-wracking that I've felt physically sick. This time is no different. But this time it's bigger. As Mother Mitten so rightly said earlier, "You're moving your whole life". I will have nothing to fall back on, no parents nearby to comfort me if something goes wrong, and in a place that I won't know my way around for a while.. It's all so daunting. So scary. So terrifying.

Packing took place earlier this evening, and it was only at this time it really hit me what I was doing. I stopped in my tracks a few times, just for a second, realising that tonight is the last time I will sleep in this hot, small bedroom at the back of the house, (for a few months at least). The steak and chips was the last meal I had cooked for me, (although that is not technically true, you know what I mean), and this is the last day I will officially live in the same house I've lived in my whole life. Tomorrow I am moving, for the first time ever. On my own.

I have spent the day thinking through what may happen. The people I may come across, and the events I will attend and the memories created that will stay with me for the rest of my life. I over-think things way too often, and this is very rarely a good thing. Most of it is negative, where the situation requires me to be relaxed and be myself. That is the one thing I am trying to urge myself to be. Myself. Don't go trying to impress the new people you meet by being someone you're not. I think I attacked Wednesday a bit too aggressively. I went to the Enrolment Day trying to be someone I wasn't, and because of it, I came out of it unsure of how it went. At least if I'm myself, I can expect nothing more or less than what I get in Bedford. I haven't got the best friendships a man could hope for, by being a general moron. And I hope similar friendships are built in the place they call 'The Sunshine Coast'..

I know it will take time. It won't come instantly, and the first few days are bound to be difficult, tricky and awkward. Everyone is in the same boat though, (another phrase I've heard a lot today), and I'm sure a few JD and cokes will make things a bit more sociable! But it still doesn't stop me being horribly nervous about the whole thing...

What's happened today? General housekeeping. The buying of final things that I had forgotten about, meeting up for a fantastic "goodbye lunch" with Kettle before packing my whole life into a suitcase and a few bags. All is complete, and everything is waiting downstairs, ready for the journey in the morning. The only complicated part is how to transport my bike to Eastbourne, and after failing to gain a bike rack to take it in, I think we have decided to go down the "dismantling of the bike" route. We considered taking the bike seperately, which involved another long and expensive train journey for me, or stealing one when I get down there, which I quickly dismissed as "a ridiculous idea".

It is now exactly midnight. I suppose it would be sensible to go to sleep. How much sleep I am going to get though is anyone's guess. I imagine a sleepless night ahead.

It's been a long, tiring, boring and nasty road, the last couple of years. To get to this point. And it's only just beginning. Tom "Mitten" Carr. University beckons.