Yesterday was bizarre. I made a very fleeting trip up to Warwick to be shown around several (I thought) possible campus rooms for me to live in from October - hence my not mentioning that I'd be there on any form of social media, because I wasn't sure how much time I'd have free. (Thanks to Roxanne for the impromptu hugs in the foyer of University House, and apologies for not letting people know.) There ended up being only one potential room, which I unfortunately won't be taking, because I could barely fit down the corridor, let alone into the room itself. So I'm going to be looking in Leamington and hoping that it, as a Spa town, has something to offer this eighteenth century geek - preferably sans stairs! (Thanks to Lauren for the short visit, puppy cuddles and bus route tips.)
But the room isn't the point of this post. I didn't think at all about what it would be like to be back - especially in the middle of the summer break - and it was really weird! Buildings and pavements were at once well-known and completely alien, and it felt both like coming home and going as far away from it as I'd ever been. Almost like being a fresher again, which I guess is what I will be as I start my PhD, but that sense of anticipation was oddly mingled with nostalgia.
The place is filled with memories, and it took me from my teens into my twenties, but I'm not that naive little girl now - in part because of how it (and the friends I made there) helped me grow. It was as though I'd stepped ('wheeled'? Nah, 'stepped', because I always walk in my dreams and I was in a dreamlike state) into a sliver of my past but also been granted a fraction of my future. I'm excited to find out what these old haunts have in store for this new me!
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