Journey to Manchester
The Second Year
After a very unique and challenging first year at Uni, I took some time out. Even though I had finished all of my work, I spent a lot of time living in Manchester until my tenancy on my flat ran out. Because of the fact that it'd been such a such a difficult time around lockdown and the breakdown of a relationship in my personal life, I decided that I wanted a change of scenery. This led me to look into getting a new apartment. I decided to stay in the same building but try living in a smaller apartment. I phoned up the apartments company and was told the address I'd be living at from September. I was very excited.
Before then, I had 2 months of living at my parents house again. I used this time to recuperate and get to grips with some issues I'd been having around my mental health. This involved taking the very good decision to start taking medication to help with my anxiety.
Apart from a couple of weeks when I was away staying with my grandparents, I spent a lot of time in bed watching TV because I needed some peace and quiet for a while.
After a quiet couple of months, the time came for me to go back to uni. I was so excited that I came back to Manchester as soon as the tenancy on my flat started, something that a lot of other people didn't do.
When I got to my flat, I was very happy with it and I actually liked it more than I thought I would.
Just like last year, I spent a couple of weeks readjusting to my new living space before I went back to Uni. When I got back to Uni, it quickly proved to be a completely different experience to the one I had last year. For starters, I was actually allowed to mix with lots of people. The majority of venues were open again and I had the choice about whether to wear a mask indoors.
For a couple of months, I had a lot of personal problems. The issues around my mental health were still quite prevalent and this resulted in me finding it hard to be "all there" at uni. September through to November 2021 was one of the most challenging times of my life so far but, at the time of writing, I feel like I am in a really good place.
After a very strange year of living by myself throughout a pandemic and dealing with some challenges with my mental health, my experience of university (and life in general) is now a lot more "normal". This is a very exciting time in my life. What will I go and do a master's degree in? Where will I be living in 5 years' time? Only time will tell.