I did it.

I'm back in Essex for the summer, which means I have 100% officially finished my first year of university. Did I ever really believe that I'd get to this point in 2011? Hell no I didn't, I totally thought I was going to bail out of UCAS and do a gap year. But against all of the odds, I did it :D

I feel absolutely stunningly clearheaded, which is totally surprising for me. I have been really teary about the whole thing, every time one of my friends left Halls I have been a wreck. But last night and this morning when I had to clear my own room out I felt really fine. I think the closure was a lot to do with the fact that I wrote a letter to the next person who gets my room, giving some advice and telling them to look after 141 for me. I feel like the business of living there is finished and that I can move on from that stage of my life.

Living there was the best 8 months of my life. Reading back from my blog from my first week there and being excited about living there for 8 months gives me goosebumps, because I've experienced such a transition. I've come into my own at university, I feel more independent, confident and so much more comfortable in my own skin. The time has been spent with the most incredible people I've ever met, and I've developed the most unreal friendships. On top of that I met my boyfriend (under unbelievable circumstances - we didn't talk at all during the first semester despite the fact we spent so much time around the same people, as we didn't know we had anything in common. Lo and behold, we've been together over three months now!) and I've just had the absolute time of my life. I moved into 141 without a friendship group, with less confidence that I made out I had and with a cynical outlook on most things. I left room 141 after spending 8 months with the best friends ever, feeling good about myself and with my boyfriend next to me. I think that's why I felt so much better about leaving than I thought I would.

So now I'm back home. I have no money, no bedroom furniture and no university. I could be feeling skint, disorganised and lonely. But instead I feel skint, disorganised and liberated. Everything I achieved this year I never thought I would, and I wouldn't change any of it for anything. It was the most mindblowingly perfect 8 months, more so than I could have have dared to dream it would be!

Today is the start of the rest, not the end of what was.