2022 has found me halfway through my 22nd year, still on the post-uni job hunt, and generally excited for whatever comes next. I would argue that the New Year shouldn’t really hold as much potency as it does – it’s a commercialised holiday that makes us feel bad about the year before and leaves us desperate to change our ways over the next calendar year (which always seems more promising than the last). If only we could remember that this same sense of ‘new beginnings’ was fed to us just 12 months ago, it would be more obvious that there is no magical realm we enter between 23:59 on December 31st and 00:00 on January 1st. Having said all that, for me, considering January 1st as a slate wiped clean is quite a comforting feeling. I like the idea of visualising the future, without the pressure of whether I will actually achieve all of the things I’m setting out to do. In my opinion, a half-completed to do list is still better than no list at all. I think what makes the most sense is: If the New Year is a positive thing for you – great, if the New Year fills you with dread – remember that it just means the earth completed an orbital period around the sun.

As I mentioned before, January lands me smack bang in the middle of my previous birthday and my next birthday. I’m halfway to 23, and just starting to realise that the notion of age we have as a child is so different to the reality of it. It strikes me that, existing within a generation of people who are now in their early 20s, the general chronology of where we should be in life is pretty skewed. As a 15 year old I would have probably scoffed at someone still living at home at 22, but now that I (and almost all of my friends) are doing just that – it makes perfect sense. Growing up is about understanding the unseen pressures of ‘adult life’, and appreciating the generosity of our parents more than we could ever imagine. My sister is 20, in her second year of university, and I’m able to make direct comparisons between her and myself at that age. We are similar in a lot of ways, although she is far more independent, but I like the fact that I can remind her of the things I felt and thought on the brim of my 20s. It works the other way round too, she was 17 when I turned 20, and so she remembers the changes I went through in the same moment that she is going through them.

Where does the mythical New Year place me? Right now it feels like I’m thinking about what to write far more than actually writing it. Over the past few months, since my post about Edinburgh, I’ve stopped and started a dozen different blog posts. I have a slight fear of oversharing (perhaps I’m doing it now), but I also find that honesty is my favourite lens with which to express myself. One of the answers I often give when asked what I like writing about, is that I always aim to write something that in turn helps others to understand more about themselves. In the second term of my final year at Exeter, I spent the majority of my time completing a very personal creative writing dissertation. I put so much of my energy into curating this perfect collection of prose and poetry, that for a while I felt a little burnt out. It was like anything I could have turned into a poem had already been done, and so I stopped writing any. It’s only recently that I’ve been turning to my notes app again to jot down lines or stanzas before they escape my head. I’ve come to realise that I must accept I will go through periods where I detest anything and everything I write, but that eventually I will regain my rhythm.

In terms of new skills, last month I decided to make the upgrade from ukulele to guitar. I played the piano for years when I was younger, but I never took the time to practice and as a result I progressed extremely slowly before eventually giving up. The reason I wanted to learn the ukulele in the first place was because I loved the idea of being able to sing along as I played, and I was so surprised at how much I learnt in such a short period of time. Since April, picking up my ukulele has been just about my favourite thing to do – it makes me feel both calm and creative, whilst obviously being very healthy for my brain. My cousin, whom picked up a guitar for the first time a couple of months ago, started suggesting that I needed to move on to the guitar because there was so much more scope for playing. Although I wasn’t keen at first (the jump from 4 strings to 6 seemed a little unnerving), I eventually gave in and received my first ever guitar on Christmas Day. It’s so satisfying to apply all that my ukulele has taught me, despite the entirely different chord patterns, and hear such a resonating tone coming from an instrument that I’m learning to play. It’s fascinating coming back to my guitar every day and realising that my agility is improving each time – my chord shapes form a little quicker, and there’s less of a hesitation between each change. If anything, learning a new instrument at 22 is a great example of how you’re never too old to do something that you’re genuinely interested in.

My love for film is ever-present, if not snowballing, and the recent surge in new cinema releases has not been kind to my bank account. I’m lucky to have friends who enjoy obsessing over the same films that I do; revelling in the experience of going to the cinema, getting an overpriced drink brought directly to our seats, and dissecting the film on the car ride home. Notable favourites from the past year include In The Heights, No Time To Die, The French Dispatch, and House of Gucci, with many still on my to-watch list. For a little while last year I hyper-fixated on music biopics and managed to watch Bohemian Rhapsody, Rocketman, Judy, and Walk the Line within a 2 week period. December saw me rewatch some of my favourites, with Greta Gerwig’s Little Women adaptation always leaving a warm and fuzzy feeling in my tummy. I’m going to stop this paragraph here before this whole post is overwhelmed with the many minutes of film I consumed in 2021, but I would like to say that I’m very excited for the Oscars in 2022.

Having not previously expected to, I find myself every now and then missing being at university. When I finished in April, I kind of felt like I was done with that part of my life, and I was itching to get on with the next part. But, honestly, I miss living with my friends and the fact that getting my essay in on time was one of the only things I worried about. Of course, I’m romanticising it – we spent a lot of time stuck in our student houses last year, and I was definitely consumed with more than just academic pressures, but I think I’m nostalgic for the proper third year that we never really got to have. What I do feel extremely grateful for, however, is the friends that I have acquired over the past few years, each one enriching my life with new experiences and wonderful conversation.

Essentially, the previous ramblings were just a few of the things that have been on my mind as we begin 2022. In true January fashion, these first 9 days have dragged, and I can’t quite believe there’s 21 more before February. Patience is at the forefront of my mind as I continue to tread the path of being a university graduate, reminding myself that without the lows in life, we would not be able to recognise the highs. My love and admiration for each of my friends and family members seems to grow with every year that I have the pleasure of spending with them, and this constant is one of the things that keeps me grounded when I begin to feel overwhelmed. Here’s to 2022 – learning new skills, meeting new people, watching more films, reading more books, being kind to one another, and doing whatever it is that makes you happy (instead of trying to please everybody else!).