Change: a First-Year Student Reflection
Hailey O’Gorman reflects on her experience of moving to Falmouth and starting first year in the Creative Writing programme.
I spent my last night in Ireland on the floor of a friend’s living room. It has been fifteen days since the same folk were there for my birthday. Everybody else has gone home, and he’s going to bed. I tell him I’ll see him in October and we hug, too tired to cry.
Pick up a notebook from the charity shop you really like. Something miniscule, but enough to look back on and give poorly advised advice to yourself.
There was a plane, a few hours of travelling, and I was in the room I put the deposit down for. That was countless months ago. Halls seemed like a bad idea, to be honest. Packed full of folks. It took me two weeks to settle in properly.
Take two weeks, find your footing. Take two weeks to unpack. Say hello to somebody who’s like you. Keep healing.
Ireland is really far away. I got bad tonsillitis, almost as soon as I got here. Fevered Falmouth. Though, I was conscious enough to know to buy a long, waterproof coat.
Buy a long, waterproof coat. This is Cornwall.
My best friend came down for a week after I moved in. We spent our last night together on Gylly beach, watching the harvest moon cast itself over the water. They said that this town had a knack for taking away time. That whole week lasted only two or three short days, then was gone. As I write this, I’ve been here for almost three months but feel I’ve lived several lifetimes here. They left. I picked up antibiotics. Now I visit the ocean every Thursday. Little nods of a routine make everything seem easier. Start writing, anything, everyday. Go on a date. Be a bit more gay. Let my life become sporadic. Falmouth has its own little logics and sensibilities. There are streets in which you see the ocean from every angle. It is honestly one of the most beautiful things.
Take your meds. Start a little routine. Start a new diary. Find your seminar rooms. Buy that coat. Oh my goodness, buy that coat.
Classes began and I became a ball of adrenaline. For a week, I was meeting new people, going to the beach, existing in this new house. I kept doing things. I stopped, once per day, to cry. I missed Dad. Or rather, I was grateful for the work he’d done to get me here. I looked through the polaroids from the last night in Ireland. And I cried at those. Somebody would ask me how I was doing. I would cry at that. There was this low hum, inviting me to quit while I was ahead. I kept going to class. Did everybody really feel the same way? The ocean was still there. The weather was excellent, too. Once, I sat on some high rock beyond the beach. Two people crossing the rocks stopped by beneath me and asked if I was okay. One of them told me they gave really good hugs. I refused, and the instant regret swelled me over. I, of course, started crying.
It’s going to get cold. You can swim. Right? Please, stop drowning. Call somebody during your free time.
Ireland is really, really far away. The repetitive nature of visiting the local shops and asking, so sweetly, if they had any job opportunities available. During late nights, I looked at Google Maps, telling me home was a four day, and twenty-two hour walk. My biggest enemy became myself – and potentially the bus driver who misgendered me. I blended in with the arts students, and stood out. A lot of people don’t wear shoes here. Some people look like extras from The Hobbit, and you’re going to have to be okay with that.
You cannot say ‘the Brits are at it again’ in a seminar. You cannot. Hide your anti-monarchy malarkey. Hang up the tricolour in your room, your little secret. It’s easier to say you were from Derry, than to explain the sick old dog, The Troubles.
Ireland is three months away. I have a strong bunch of strong pals, a colourful bunch, who I love. My housemates are good. It’s a bit like a marriage. I got a job, at long last. These are things that happen, in just the same way September happens to turn to October. I said to my Dad, who drove down with a van full of boxes, that I had a contented feeling of ‘homefullness’ here. At first, this town felt like soft rocks, and now I skim pebbles against the ocean every Thursday.
Walk from Gylly to Swanpool. Take your meds. Call home. Change.
by Hailey O’Gorman