Growing Pains
The reflections of a student who will not remain a student much longer.
I don’t know how to start this post. Usually, even before I start writing, I have lines in my head, a structure of a kind, some words I want to use, and maybe even a story. But today, I have nothing. Well, that is not entirely true, I do have a theme; this post was supposed to reflect on the year past and gnaw on the negotiation with the year forward.
2025 is a transition year for me, a big transition year. Finishing the BA (hopefully, I will be able to submit all my assignments in a timely fashion), applying for jobs while I am finishing my assignments, working on the first season of Negotiating Bodies (a research podcast that I am collaborating with Jess Ingram on), working on and doing the final year Curating show, moving back home, moving to another country to work (hopefully I get a job in this country and it is a job that will take care of all of my bodily and intellectual needs), and other smaller and bigger things.
It’s overwhelming when everything is put in one place. All of it comes up to a few sentences, but the weight of those sentences is worth worlds, dreams… and actual physical money, a lot of actual physical money. The memories attached to all these places makes everything painfully anxiety-inducing. The oldness of things breeds a form of toxic entanglement that is comfortable. On the other hand, fear seeps into my being regarding the inevitable newness of certain things. My parents try to placate my anxiety by reminding me of their presence and support, but anxiety doesn’t work that way. I am still anxious, I am still anxious about “growing up”, about “adult-ing”. I have been doing a version of both, but I was still in the (kind of) safe hands of university (however safe one can be in the hands of the UK higher education system as an international student or as a national student, really).
What does it mean to finally “grow-up”, become an “adult”? What is that final action that makes both of those things happen?
Age was, and is, used to define this threshold between the thing before adulthood and then adulthood. I never liked the line; it is too simple of a definition. One day, you are 18, and you are an adult. That night when you were both 17 and 18, that border between those ages, only separated by a flimsy clock that gives order to the happenings of the entire world. 11:59, you are 17, and then 12:00, you are 18. Suddenly, you are still mature for your age, but you are also of age. Your access to the world increases.
The world has so many plans for you, but you have so many plans for the world as well. And there is a clash, somewhere, somehow, there is a clash. Is existing through the clash “growing-up”? Is existing through that ache, chivalrously enduring that ache, “growing up”? Was chronic illness my moment of “growing-up”? Was navigating college through pain with little to no access to healthcare my moment of “growing-up”? Was surgery my moment of “growing-up”? Or was navigating London, uni, NHS, assessments, working while studying, and negotiating for accommodations in the environments I exist in, was that my moment of “growing-up”? Or will 2025, the big transition year, be my moment of “growing-up”? When will I “grow-up”? When will I become an “adult”? How is it that I do all of these “grown-up” and “adult” things but do not feel “grown-up” or “adult” like? Most of all, is “growing-up”, “adult-ing” the act of forgetting to exist in the moment for the fear of a future optimally perfect existence?
2024 was a year of heartache. It began with a form of heartache and ended in another form of heartache. Some friendships that I hoped would last, withered away. The year was saturated with a grief that clung to what felt like unfinished friendships. Or friendships that were cut short. The shortness of it was necessary; even then, I silently lament. It feels like a ball of sadness that I can do nothing about apart from letting it exist behind the farce of mundanity. Maybe it is because I wonder if I did the correct thing, but correctness is irrelevant.
That was quite dramatic. However dramatic it may be, I do feel that. Along with that, there was a huge restructure at my university. A lot of staff were made redundant, a lot more centralisation of administration happened, the fees were increased, and everything was just more stifling in the violence of senior management and their lack of open communication and transparency. It was an overwhelming time, more so for others than me.
Because of all of this, I applied for extensions for the first time. It was overwhelming. A grappling of feelings happens when applying for the first extension. Human capacities are confronted. I don’t hate that I applied for extensions, but I do wonder why I feel inadequate as a person for requesting some respite for my body and mind.
And then came the beginning of another term, it was a bumpy start. Enrolment took a long time; classes began before enrolment happened. The grief of loss is still heavy in the hallways of the university. Working while processing it feels… cruel. I don’t understand how we are expected just to continue when we are in pain. Why does the world keep moving even when we are in pain? Why are we expected to continue to move when we are in pain?
My body and mind have been aching since the beginning of 2024; it keeps getting worse and better and worse and somehow worser. It’s hard to navigate my body, the world, and my wants and desires. It feels like a negotiation that is almost entirely impossible. Sometimes, there is no negotiation, I need to let go of something, something that feels too important to me. But, somehow, it just isn’t because of my body, mind, world, wants and desires. All of this makes me wonder about the big transition year. I am having a hard time being alive in uni; how will I be alive for “adult-ing” when I am entirely too bogged down by the survival of the daily?
Everything I do now feels like following an elaborate script to train for an optimally perfect future. I exercise so that my joints are more stable, ache less, and daily things are easier compared to the worst form of deterioration. I try not to form deep, meaningful relationships that will ache with distance between them because I am not tied to a place; I don’t want to be tied to a place. But, I do form deep, meaningful connections and force myself to get used to the naturalness of humans falling into and out of each other through life's winding path. Those are the big things; the small things are—letting go of pretty things in pretty fairs because I will have to move countries inevitably, and they will be lost. I don’t like the temporariness of things. I grieve the temporariness. And yet my life is filled with temporary homes and temporary companions; it is filled with me trying to make temporary worlds that are nourishingly full and achingly painful when over.
But that desire for a future, it makes me forget to enjoy the the things I enjoy. It makes me forget the joy in writing, in looking at light patterns, in breathing air that doesn’t hurt my lungs, in eating meals that are entirely too satisfying, in plants and flowers and paintings and reading. It makes me forget because there will come a time when everything will be perfect, and I will do more than survive the daily; I will live, and the living will consist of all the things I love if I remember that I love them that is, because love is a relentless task.
I think I spent all of 2024 planning for 2025, the big transition year. In that planning, I forgot to live without the ache of anxiety. Or maybe, I wanted to cram as much living as possible because I would not be able to live for a while before, during, and after the transition. I don’t know, I think I did both. Or maybe I didn’t do either. I am not entirely sure.
