Contemplate what? Anything and everything. There has been so much on my mind as of late I've been walking down streets of melted snow and ice under bare trees completely absorbed in my mind. Today as I walked down a street I've never walked down on my own before, I was thinking about the nature of our existence. This may seem surprisingly philosophical for me, but I just want to get this down somewhere and this seems to be a good place.
It seems like we are constantly taking two steps forwards and two steps back, in every way. I was looking at the BBC News on my phone and I saw that unemployment has risen sharply in the last 3 months and I silently begged for the conservatives to sort it out. A while ago I had a look at the unemployment rate of the last 50 years or so and saw that when Thatcher was in power, unemployment declined hugely but when Brown was our prime minister the level skyrocketed. It's like everything Thatcher did to bring down the level was pointless. Obviously it wasn't, but if you look at the chart that's the initial feeling. There's this feeling of reciprocity, where everything that is done is undone, redone, undone again etc. and the cycle never ends. As I think my mum said, "labour spend spend spend, tory cut cut cut".
The trees lose their leaves with the promise of getting them back in the spring, only to lose them again. Forwards, backwards, forwards, backwards.
Another thing I was thinking about was my university education and where it is ultimately going to lead me. A startling number of graduates I have met struggle to find a job after they graduate and yes, they end up back at their parents' home, which is most likely the last place they want to be after the 3 or more year struggle for independence. Back and forth. In and out.
And finally, our lives. We are born dependant on those around us, we grow up and learn to be independent and take care of ourselves only to be largely dependant again on the community and our loved ones when we get elderly. In a way it makes you think, we spend a lot of our lives striving for independence and to escape, but ultimately what is it worth?
It's worth everything, especially to me. The freedom you experience during the years of living in a new place or making new friends are the best years and worth every moment. You learn so much by meeting new faces, seeing new things, looking at things from a different perspective and learning about the world around you. Moving away from home, away from my secluded corner of the country has taught me so much about the world I live in and the people I share an island with.
More important than anything, since I have moved out I've been able to see my life as if I'm standing away from it, looking from a distance. Sometimes it's incredibly valuable to just look at your life with different eyes, from a different place.
Will I ever return to New Romney? No. Not for anything other than nostalgia. As I say goodbye to the corner of the world that I lived in for 18 years, I may miss it but I will not look back. Life is too fast to look back. You may spend all your time thinking about the past and let the present pass you by.
As 2010 comes to a close, and I get ready to welcome the new year with friends and alcohol, I will be looking to the future with excitement and imagination, for the world is my oyster right now. University is the crossroads, from here I can go in absolutely any direction I want. The control I have over my life makes me content.
So friends, have a very merry christmas and enjoy seeing your family! I'll see you on the other side.
No comments:
Post a Comment