Day 340
Looking back, it’s odd what I remember most about my first day in this city. What my overwhelmed senses identified that day. The ache in my body as my friend and her daughter walked me across this then unfamiliar city back to my new home. My first night in Cardiff tasted like cheap tomato sauce from the frozen pizza I cooked for dinner. It sounded like awkward laughter between a group of strangers. It felt fragile almost, like I was about to try and build something without a solid foundation underneath. I remember going to bed in a strange city, locked down away from all my friends and family, missing my pets and missing my old life in Bristol, and I wondered if I'd made the right decision in coming here.
Cardiff was a gamble. It was a risk. It was terrifying. It was not easy. In fact, it was one of the hardest things I have ever done. There were moments when Winter was never ending, the world just kept getting worse, and for the entirety of February, I really thought I would not be able to finish this Master's degree. In a moment of severe self-doubt, I wondered why I had even thought to try and do one in the first place.
This city taught me about failure. It taught me that the only real failure, is the failure to try. We measure our failures by how we cope with disappointment. And cope we must. I came here; I tried. I think all of us in my flat tried, in different ways. All of us wondering whether we'd done the right thing, moving to this city in the middle of a pandemic. Would we succeed, or would we fail? And worse, if we did fail, could we cope with the disappointment? But I think now, that we would have been more disappointed if we hadn't tried at all. We get up each day, and we try our best. That's all anyone can do. And nothing else matters.
Back in October, my flatmates and I sat down on our less than comfortable leather sofas and made a list of all the things we wanted to do once we were out of lockdown. Looking at that list now, hardly any of it is crossed off. This is our disappointment, that we moved to this incredible city and hardly got to do anything in it for most of the year. But that disappointment does not outweigh the successes; the joy. That disappointment pales in comparison to the things that we did get to do together, even confined to a flat. Nine strangers were thrown together and then thrust into lockdown, and I thought at first that it was going to be unbearable. Instead, I had more fun and did more new things than I ever thought I'd get to do this year. I celebrated Thanksgiving, and tried homemade pumpkin pie for the first time. I took part in an Iftari, ate homemade Pakistani Biryani and was gifted a scarf and a mat from across the world. I learnt some Urdu, very little Japanese, and practiced and failed at doing yoga with my flatmate from India.
I completed a Master's degree that was entirely online in the middle of a Global Pandemic, and I still cannot believe that I did that. I might not have seen and done everything I wanted to do during my master's year here, but I got something so much better. I made friends from around the world, who are friends for life.
And for all those uncrossed things on that list, there's all the things that I did get to do while in this city. I climbed the Welsh coastline and explored castles, got mobbed by swans and seagulls, rode the Ferris wheel at the Bay, and spent way too much money at the arcades on Barry Island. My parents got to visit me, and I was reunited with my best friend after more than a year apart in these very streets. I explored tiny streets and got well and truly lost, dyed my hair purple, had dinner at a good friend's house and I even managed to complete the couch to 5K.
This week has been a series of quiet goodbyes and final things. Grabbing my last food shop from Tesco to get me through the last few days. Doing one final load of washing and knowing with utter certainty that I will never ever miss having to use circuit laundry and pay £3.30 to wash my clothes ever again. Eating dinner out with my flatmates for the last time, an early birthday celebration for me and a way to say goodbye. These goodbyes are the scary ones. The ones where we just don't know when we'll see each other again. But we had an evening of good food and tasty cocktails and so much laughter my stomach hurt. We reminisced and marveled that we've actually made it to the end of this master's year, despite the lockdowns, the online format, the caged feeling we suffered cooped up in our flat for days on end, the constant rotation of breakdowns between our rooms. And honestly, I’d do it all over again in a heartbeat.
I got one last slice of the red velvet cheesecake I adore from that one specific shop on Queen street. I went back into the very first shop I bought something from back in October, on my first solo exploration of the city, and bought a final thing from it to take with me when I go. I ordered one last takeaway with my flatmates to eat while we moan and stress our way through our last few days before our dissertation deadlines. We had one last game of pool, one last late night walk in the city, one last game of crazy golf. I was gifted a book, mug and biscuits on my last day just like I was on my first, and I loved how it came full circle.
Today I packed my entire life back into my very battered Peugeot, ready for one final road trip that will mark the end of five years of university. This will be the first September where I don't have school, sixth form, or university to go to. And that's kind of terrifying to think about. That this chapter of my life is ending, in a way that I never dared to think it would. Because five years of university later, and I'm still no closer to figuring out what I'm going to do now. Everyone is asking me what I am planning on doing next, after my masters. What my career will be, where I will settle, what I want to do as a job. But the truth is, I have no idea.
All I can say for certain, is that for a girl who once spent more time planning her funeral than planning to go to university, what I have done these past five years is beyond anything I ever thought I would do; thought I could do.
I don't know where I'll end up next, after this. And that's okay. I don't need to have it all figured out.
I don't know when or if I'll come back to Cardiff. But I will never forget the year I spent in this city, or the people I spent it with.
Diolch, Caerdydd. Diolch am fy nghael i.
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