Finishing University and Becoming Me

Just under three years ago I got my A-Level results and found out that I hadn’t got into my first choice university. Obviously, at the time, I was extremely disappointed, and to some extent I felt like I’d let myself down. Three years have passed since then though, and I now know that something which I originally looked at as a failure was in fact one of the best things that has happened to me. I was lucky to have had a couple of bad days in exams, because if I hadn’t the past three years of my life, probably the best three years of my life, wouldn’t have taken the same course.

As a person I’ve grown immensely over the past few years (and not just because of the copious amounts of pizza I’ve devoured), I’ve become much more self-confident, independent and assured. I no longer have to check someone else thinks the way that I do, speaks the way that I do or wears the same clothes as I do; if something works for me then it works for me, why should I even give a second’s thought as to how other people might think about something that makes me… me? This seems obvious now, but it hasn’t always been so. At school I was quite a shy kid without much to say for myself, I didn’t really express myself because I didn’t want anyone to think I was weird or strange in any way. Now I’m offended if people don’t think I’m a bit strange.

At sixth form I became a bit more confident, I bought a green suit (which was cool I don’t care what anyone thinks) and I was much happier to make contributions to discussions, but I still wasn’t quite comfortable with myself. However, that changed quite quickly when I came to university. I came to Brighton with the intention not only to do well in my studies and improve my knowledge, but also with the intention to do well as a person and to improve, really, how I thought about myself.

While I was at sixth form I’d come to the realisation that one thing I could do was make (at least some) people laugh, and making people laugh is, from my experience, the best way to not only make friends and make other people happy, but also to make yourself happy.

I was determined to make the most of the opportunity for somewhat of a new start at university, to go out of my comfort zone and enjoy what I was told would be the best three years of my life – what I hoped would be the best three years of my life. Armed with my ability to make (at least some) people laugh, I made friends with my flatmates and my coursemates. They could either have befriended me because of my ability to make (at least some of) them laugh, or out of the necessity to get along with people you have to spend nearly every day with. I’ve also had really good relationships with my lecturers and tutors, all of whom it’s been a pleasure to learn from and interrupt the lessons of with often failed attempts at making a joke. From these groups I know I’ll have friends for life and I’m sure that when we all have to say goodbye my hayfever will perk up and make it look like I’m crying.

Each of these groups of people have helped me enormously to develop into the person I am now and the person that I’m proud to be. They’ve laughed at (at least some of) my jokes, laughed at me for drunken mistakes and laughed at me for sober mistakes. So really they’ve just laughed at me… They’ve shared good times and bad times with me (there hasn’t been much bad) and they’ve always supported me regardless of whether they agree with me or not. They still read this damn blog for goodness sake, imagine having friends that would do that for you!

The likelihood is I’ll come out with a decent degree which of course I will be proud of, but something else I will take from my experience over the last three years is that being me is pretty fantastic. It’s fantastic because I have a group of friends at home and a group of friends at uni that are vastly different but are the same in that they make life enjoyable. It’s fantastic because I’m happy with who I am as a person and I don’t need the approval of people who don’t matter to me. It’s fantastic because I know that moving forward I have people around me who will laugh with me when I’m happy and pick me up when I’m sad, and I know they’ll do this for me, the person I am, which is luckily the person I want to be.

Just this week I went for a night out dressed as a woman, and strangely enough I think this sums up how I’ve grown as a person. Three years ago, I wouldn’t have even entertained the thought of going out dressed as a woman; what would people think? But now I don’t care, I only care what people close to me think, and they thought it was hilarious. That made whatever sense of embarrassment I felt worth it.

I guess what I wanted to say in this ramble is thank you to those people, those people who’ve helped me become a man who would dress as a woman to make them laugh. Thank you for making me happy. You’re all wonderful.

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