Musings on my Year Abroad so far

When people would ask for advice on coming to university for the first time, I would arrogantly tilt my head back and confidently give them a long-winded spiel about how you should “never expect perfection.” I'd slink back into my chair like an age-old philosopher, pondering questions of ethics and morality. So much so, that I can’t quite believe I didn’t start fondling a comically long grey beard and talking purely in riddles. I’d turn to my friends and say how “the most crucial bit of advice I can give about going into your first year, is to have low expectations. Low, low, low. I mean be positive, but like, you won’t meet the love of your life in the first semester, and you won’t suddenly become a shining example of perfect independence. No, no. Don’t get me wrong. It is fun. But, it’s more like an eating frozen pizza's and being able to come back home at 4am without feeling guilty sort of independence, though.” I would then proceed to recount all the worldly advice I’d learnt after two long and gruelling years of university. Turns out, I am the world’s biggest hypocrite. I would give this said ‘advice’, after having just daydreamed about my cute new imaginary boyfriend and glamorous apartment in Stockholm that I was sure I’d get on my Year Abroad. In hindsight, of course, I wish I’d have a pseudo philosopher friend to warn me that a Year Abroad is simply just ‘First Year: The Sequel’.

The initial hurdle came when I realised that to live in the sort of apartments I’d been yearning after, it would cost about half a million pounds and my first born son. And that’s only for the first week. It was a sort of “I know I’ll be mostly living off a student loan and Erasmus Grant, but can I justify spending four grand a month to live three hours away in an Ikea catalogue apartment?” The answer, of course, was no. So I did what any respectable and pragmatic adult would do—cried for two weeks and started fleshing out this boyfriend daydream instead. It then occurred to me that you can’t live in a city without having a place to stay, even if you had a boyfriend who meets you after lectures with an iced soya latte (that you didn’t have to ask for). I turned my attention to shared houses, although I got rejected by every potential roommate. I’m not sure if it was because I was vegan or Welsh, but I’m pretty certain it might be one of those things. Or, maybe, because they could see that my heart really wasn’t in it. All I truly wanted was to be in student accommodation with my friends, although I wasn’t assigned any. The final straw was when I finally got accepted into a shared place, but upon closer inspection of the photographs provided of the interior, my mum apprehensively said “are those… handcuffs… hanging from the ceiling?”

Luckily enough for me, I was then granted student accommodation and placed with all my friends. I’m not saying that it was the 30,000 emails I sent to my university, explaining how my only potential living option was either with a man who literally had a skeleton in the corner of his apartment, or to commute from Wales. Whatever it was, everything was finally coming together. Cut to me moving into my student room, of which I can only really describe as ‘beige’. Beige curtains, a beige sort of floor, beige looking wooden desk, beige bed, beige lamp and beige bookcase. The only object breaking up the beige, was a bright green chair that looked like an antique family heirloom that nobody wants, but equally feels too guilty to give away. “I love it, this can work” I thought, as I slammed my bags down on the floor. My friend and I had just transported all my bags up two flight of stairs, and I was genuinely considering whether or not my arms were now longer than they were prior to lugging all my prized belongings from one place to another.

“Can you speak any Swedish?” people would ask me. “Yeah, I can” I’d say. By that I meant I could speak about three words, all of which being ‘tack’, ‘så’ and ‘mycket’. I can also say “I love dogs”, but I haven’t found a chance to use that in a daily conversation yet. Which, and I’m not being sarcastic here, genuinely does surprise me. I was under the false pretence that re-watching SKAM — which is Norwegian — every two months, was sufficient. It didn’t take long to realise that these two languages are in fact quite different, and it’s a bit rude to move to Sweden and speak some broken Norwegian and then confidently say “I’d say I can speak a bit of Swedish, yeah. Yeah, no, definitely a bit.” In fact, I think I could speak more Swedish before I moved here than I can now. There’s something about knowing that people can actually understand what you’re attempting to say, that suddenly makes the whole act of "speaking Swedish" off-putting. It’s all well and good shouting “I LOVE DOGS!” in Swedish to a room full of English people, but in the actual country things become tricky.

I know what you’re all wondering—how did the boyfriend daydream turn out? Well firstly, BUGGER OFF. Secondly, turns out you don’t suddenly become more attractive to boys when you move to a different country. Unless you’re my friend Em, who got chatted up at a bus stop whilst carrying a bag of shopping. She claims she doesn’t get this sort of attention at home, but who truly knows. All I know is that a man once tried chatting me up by saying “well you’re not really my type, but your friend Em is.” So it’s nice to see that at least one of us gets to live in my fantasy. I’m alright pining after Hugh Grant in Notting Hill for a few more years.

It turns out that, as I so often tend to catch myself doing, I was pining after the wrong type of love. When I was picturing romantic snowy walks with a partner, our glove covered hands being intertwined, that this picturesque romance wasn’t really what I wanted. Instead, I should have pictured staying up until the early hours of the morning, laughing uncontrollably whilst tucked up in bed with my closest friends, or dancing to unidentifiable music in the basement of a damp club. The people I’ve met here make the even the mediocre fun—I feel my stomach getting tight from laughing so much at the most insignificant things at a crowded metro station with them, or as we make ourselves dinner, even as we sit in the library trying to start writing our 3,000 word essays two hours before the deadline. It's the friendships I’ve made that make this entire decision worth it. It has taught me to dive right in and just love people, for all they are, despite being constantly aware that you only have a little bubble of time to spend together until you all head back to reality.

So what is my advice about your Year Abroad? It’s simple. Remember that no matter what country you move to, you remain the same. This is not a bad thing. You don’t need to be a polyglot, live in a huge fancy apartment or have some sort of gorgeous Viking boyfriend to be lovable. You already are. Your year abroad will make you realise that the things to daydream about, the things to cherish—they are what you already have, what you hold close to your heart. It’s not the things you don’t have, it’s what has always been there. I have never in my life been so in love with my friends, my family, my pets, with my hometown, with myself—until now.

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A love letter to awkwardness

I've had the privilege of not ever being considered cool in my entire life. This is good, because you cannot lose what you don’t have, and I don’t have to upkeep a mysterious, underground persona. How do you know I’m telling the truth? Here’s how— no cool person has ever used the word ‘cool’ in their entire life. They just haven’t. They’re too busy looking spectacular in neon clothes at festivals. It’s just not something they say. I don’t know how old I was when I realised I was uncool. It might’ve been when I got cast as Ant and Dec in a primary school play or when I clapped during a plane landing when I was thirteen. You don’t decide to be uncool, it just sort of chooses you. It’s the product of being the girl who is perpetually clumsy in P.E lessons and literally cannot throw a ball to save her life, or being someone who loses their shoe whilst walking up a flight of stairs and continues to walk because they're embarrassed to acknowledge what just happened. You'd rather walk three miles in one shoe than have to ask someone to "please get off my shoe" and then continue on having a normal day. What exactly does it mean to be ‘uncool’? Here’s a few tell-tale signs—It’s when you have to try and pronounce the name of lagers you don’t understand in a pub full of attractive bearded men because you literally don’t have the slightest clue about what a ‘cool’ beer is and don’t want to embarrass yourself in a micro-brewery. It’s forgetting how old you are when somebody asks you and saying “um” before telling a stranger what your name is. It’s unironically saying phrases like “blimey!’ and “what’s the delio?” (the latter of which not even I condone in a public setting.)

 People who choose to reclaim their awkwardness are often viewed as borderline unbearable, like they’re so scared of being normal that they desperately try and explain how quirky they are to everyone they meet. See: the people who have ‘I’m just a bit of a spontaneous nerd. Sorry!!!!!!’ written on their Tinder profiles. Look at the character Jess from New Girl—she is both adored and despised. She’s the poster girl of uncomfortable personalities, constantly wearing oversized glasses and not understanding popular culture. I’m part of the group who fell in love with her character on the show, often relating to her complete inability to ever say something remotely smooth. It’s a pleasure to watch somebody acting so painfully awkward yet still being loved by all their friends, even by Cece—who represents the archetypal ‘cool girl’. In my opinion, those of us who are undeniably awkward should be allowed to find joy in it. It should be a deal, if you had boys in secondary school laughing at you because of your personality then you’re legally allowed to romanticise your awkwardness. It’s just fair game. If you’ve ever had a football land smack bang in your face in front of your entire year group on what would’ve been a joyous summer day, then yes, you’re well within your rights to call yourself quirky when you enter adulthood.

Here’s what I believe though—aren’t we all a bit awkward? Don’t even the coolest of the cool sometimes trip over thin air and bump into a table in front of someone they fancy? Haven’t we all mispronounced the word ‘necessary’ whilst giving a presentation? Learning to love the awkward quirks that we all have is the beauty of life. Is that not friendship, after all? Is it not breaking down the shell of your cool persona until you’re both comfortable enough around each other to snort laugh at rubbish jokes? Here’s a toast to awkwardness, to my teenage self and to self-acceptance. The next time I spill a drink I’ve just ordered down myself in a crowded bar, I’ll think of this blog post. Then I’ll probably slip over said drink because I’m too distracted by my own writing. But it’s cool now, because I said so.

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The relationship between beauty and shame

I feel genuinely, and quite overwhelmingly torn about debates circling around at the moment discussing beauty. Should we all have to feel beautiful? Is it truly a necessity? Is beauty a privilege that not all of us will experience, that only some can reap the benefits of? My initial answer to that should probably be a defiant, proud ‘YES!’ I’ve grown up as a self-identified ‘unattractive person’ my entire life. I've never had the pleasure of existing in my body and not hating it. It’s sad, it’s awe-consuming, but it’s true. I remember the first time someone spoke negatively about my body when I was six years old. I can distinctly picture going home and clawing at my stomach, running around the garden in circles. I’d count the amount of times I circled around the trees that enclosed our spacious leafy garden, pulling up my top on every tenth lap, to check if my body was different. Although, these comments on my size and shape were almost minuscule in comparison to how insecure my face made me feel. I was thirteen, sat in the back of a classroom, when a boy turned to me and said “You’re so ugly, I can’t even look at you.” The words hit me hard, like a wave crashing against your ankles whilst you’re stood on the edge of the water at the beach. It hit me with force, with power, with shame. I am so deeply aware of the exact feelings those words catalysed within me. I wanted to run out of the classroom and hide. I wanted to tilt my head down, covering my face with my hair just to stop anyone looking at me. I became hyper-aware of myself, as if every single action I ever made was being criticised. I developed an intense paranoia, that I could be walking down the street and someone would suddenly shout about how horrifically ugly I was. When I was seventeen, I went to see a therapist about this ‘ugliness’. He described it analytically and logically, explaining how it was  lodged in my daily memory, it had somehow gotten stuck and kept replaying in the future, so I couldn't leave it in the past as merely just an uncomfortable moment. He said that I imagined those words being said to me as a young adult, not an awkward teenager with a badly cut fringe during a monotonous GCSE lesson. I still hear those words now. I hear a friend telling me “I don’t even understand why anyone has ever called you pretty?” These phrases have all become tangled around my rational, critical thoughts. I can’t walk past a group of men laughing without assuming it’s about my ugliness, because suddenly I’m back in school, where to be beautiful was a prize. Beauty was respect, worth and popularity. I grew up thinking I was a girl whose face was so shockingly awful that it was a disservice to for others to even look at.

I wish I could say that those thoughts have left me, but the truth is that it takes a lot of hard work to build yourself back up from that sort of torment. I hear them as I flinch when someone tries to take a photo of me. They are there when I’m looking into the mirror before I step into a hot shower, or if I'm trying on clothes in a horribly lit changing room. Rationally, I know that beauty is not everything. Yet, with every single disappointment, every time something goes wrong in my personal life, I blame it on my ugliness. I started to a imagine a different, more fulfilling life, one where I could be looked at without somebody's eyes striking fear into my soul. I desired, so desperately, to feel comfortable in someone else's gaze.  In the universe where I was beautiful, I had never been cheated on, never been laughed at, never had to shake at the thought of speaking in front of people, I didn't tense up when walking into a big crowd. I dreamt up entire universes, of a version of me that didn’t feel trapped inhabiting my body. I envisioned being someone who could freely pose in front of a camera without having the worry that a bad photograph of myself could send me into a horrific spiral of self-hatred. So in that case, with all of my personal experience in mind, of course I think beauty should not be expected. The idea that we have to be beautiful to be worthy of respect and love has governed my entire life, stopped me from truly living. The amount of parties I have cancelled on, because I have felt too unattractive to go, is something I can’t think about without bursting into tears. There are so many group photos I’m absent from, a plethora of opportunities that I've refused to take, all because I’ve considered myself too ugly to enter that space.

Yet, here’s where I contradict myself. It sounds whimsical and proud, but I truly find beauty in the majority of people I meet. I have never been around someone and deemed them too ugly to inhabit a certain space, so why must I do it to myself? Even with physical beauty standards aside, which hold a multitude of issues that could be critically analysed and pulled apart, there’s so much beauty in the soul of a person. There are so many instances where I’ve been around my friends and considered them the most beautiful people in the world. For my friend Anna, it’s the way she lights up any room she enters. She’s the wittiest, most intelligent and warm person I have ever met. There's nothing I crave more than to be sat by her side in a dimly lit pub, drinking a glass of red wine and making each other burst into tears of laughter. I see beauty in her whenever she goes to tell me a story, in her incredibly well structured way, that is so perfectly paced and thrilling that I swear she could be an actor if that’s what she wanted. For my friend Ellie, it is the way she is so passionate her hobby that she turned it into an incredible career. She inspires me to always follow the route of what makes me happy, because it’ll hopefully work out in the end. It’s how she listens so deeply to everything her friends are saying, remembering conversations that happened years ago. It’s that same warmth that Anna has, it’s a beauty that cannot really be described through features or clothes, it just beams out of them, in the same way that the brightness of the hot sun gleams through your window on an August day. It’s the wonder of getting to see Tori when she laughs, how Izzy lights up when talking about sustainability, or the way Hannah is always smiling and looking to make others laugh even when she is struggling herself. It’s the concentrated look on Harry's face when he's talking to me about the visions he has for his music, how Lucy looks when she’s softly curled up reading a book, or the excitement in Rachel’s eyes whenever she gets home from Acapella having learnt a new song. There’s so much beauty that seeps from all my friends, from the intricacies of people.  It's the way they tell a certain joke, or how they always quote that one T.V show even though they're aware nobody else has ever seen it, or the way they hug you firmly when your chest feels tight. It seems unfair to deny anyone an opportunity to bask in the word 'beautiful' just because I've failed to feel it for myself. My friends, truly, are beautiful. So many people that I see every single day are beautiful, in ways that I cannot fully explain. Learning the complexities of someone's personality, entering the labyrinth of their mind. Beauty is seeing your friend who always wears perfectly crafted make-up waking up next to you, being allowed to look at them with their hair knotted and their eyelashes stuck together, and still deeming them incredibly, unequivocally beautiful. It upsets me to think of never calling my friends beautiful ever again, because they truly are. Of course because of the fundamental parts of their personality, but It’s all the features on their face, too. From Anna’s icy blue eyes to Hannah’s beautiful curly hair to Nicole's sincere smile. It’s the uniqueness of them all, it’s the way they laugh and the way they express themselves. I wish I could dedicate this entire piece about the sheer beauty of the people I love, in ways that are all completely different and worthy of their own, exclusive description. I could pick out the beauty in every single one of my friends and family members, as if I was analysing the meaning of  a pretentious novel. I would find it easy to explain the exact details of why I think they are wonderful, of why they should never have to experience a single day of being insecure.

So, rather than viewing myself as a failure because of this ‘ugliness’ I have attached to my appearance, why don’t I start trying to find the aspects of me that are beautiful? Yes, maybe if I had longer hair, was a little taller, or changed my face in some way, I’d possibly be perceived as more physically attractive. But also what that plan fails drastically? What if I go through all the trouble of changing every single perceived flaw, only to realise that the hatred was never towards those specific features, but was simply my anxiety trying to attach itself to absolutely anything? I am beautiful because of the very essence of who I am.  I will still, inevitably, have days where I feel a bit too big, too ugly; it will cross my mind that I  somehow simultaneously take up too little and too much space. I, of course, will still live through days where I check the mirror thirty times before leaving the house. Although, I will remind myself that even if I had longer hair, grew a few inches taller, or lost some weight, nothing would really change. I would still breathe the same air and read the same books. I would still make my friends laugh, and feel a rush of joy every time I noticed them smiling at something I’ve said. I would still say "awww" each time I pass a squirrel whilst walking through Hyde Park. I'd still have a crush on floppy haired Hugh Grant, and I'd still dance around my room to Ariana Grande songs in exactly the same manner that I do now. All of the best parts of me cannot be altered physically. It’s not my fault that I’ve always been told women must be pretty, in a highly detailed 'conventional' sense, to be valued. My friends and family probably wouldn’t even notice if I got a nose job, or lost weight, or ordered an entirely new wardrobe on ASOS because I suddenly hated all my clothes. They love me because of the way I make them cups of tea when they’re sad, or draw silly cartoons of their cat when they’re feeling homesick or stay up at 1am singing Torn on Karaoke because they’re sad about an ex-boyfriend. They don’t love me because of what’s on the outside, they cherish me because I will sit and talk to them for hours about everything and nothing, because I’ll be the first to walk them to a doctor’s appointment when they’re feeling low, or to text them at 8am to make sure they’re up in time for a lecture.

I know that prettiness is fleeting, that physical beauty is not the stuff of life. All the moments where I've been the most content, seem to be where beauty does not enter the picture at all; it is being in grubby pyjamas watching films with my family, taking my  dog for a walk in a muddy park, or making dinner in the kitchen with my housemates wearing only a massive jumper that I found in the bin of a charity shop. One day, I truly hope, I will feel beautiful. Not because I’ve got a new dress, or because I've posted a nice picture on Instagram. It will be because I’ve made someone’s day a bit better than it would’ve been if I’d not been in it.  I won’t ever let this feeling of ‘ugliness’ stop me from doing anything ever again. It has taken so much from me in the past. You do not owe exterior beauty to anyone, but that doesn't mean it's not there. It's there for everyone, in some way. I truly believe that.

I always find myself thinking ‘now is the moment you need to start loving yourself’. It’s my mantra, I repeat the words again and again until I feel soothed. I say it whenever I get my heart broken, or I’ve cried about my body, or I’ve gotten a bad essay mark. I say it when it feels like every single part of me has been destroyed and needs to be built back up again. This time, though, it’s going to be a tougher type of love. This type is going to force me out of the house even when I feel ugly, it’s going to make me stick to plans even when my heart is racing. This love will mean to live, truly and freely, without fear. I don’t want to cancel on my friends just in case I make a fool of myself. Maybe I will, and that’s not shameful. There’s no shame in being human, with all the vulnerability and chaos that brings. This love will force me to stop avoiding cameras, to go to events, to arrive at the party and to always speak up when I’ve got ideas swirling around in my mind. I’m no longer separating myself from everybody else, as if I was made incorrectly. This self-love will reprogram the entirety of my brain, forcing me to unlearn everything I know and feel is safe. The truth is, I’m not safe here. I’m not safe with this mindset. So, I am worthy of this love; I require a love that will push me forward, that will untangle all the thoughts I’ve ever believed, to dismantle whatever it is inside my mind that means I flinch when I’m near a mirror, or how I stay silent in a room out of fear of being heard. I’ve decided that feeling ‘too ugly’ will never stop me from doing anything ever again. It’s not a proper excuse, it doesn’t hold up. I will not look back on my life and have no stories to tell because I felt that my body, or my face, wasn’t enough. Truthfully, now I have accepted that I am not my worst thoughts. I never have been. I have always been enough, I have never been left behind. There is so much more to life than fear of ‘ugliness’. If I can find beauty in my friends, in humanity, there must be some left for myself. I won't be giving up the idea of beauty entirely, I'll just be redefining the way I perceive it.

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