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My First Week Back At College

 A lot has changed for me in the last year. For one thing, I passed all of my exams including Functional Skills Maths and English, and  Bookkeeping Level 1. I admit, I did burst into tears when I opened my mail and pulled out my maths certificate. 

I'd stopped my academic education at 13, and fortunately my parents enrolled me in artistic pursuits instead of letting my depression shut down my brain completely. It always remained a quiet point of shame for me that I'd never been able to do my GCSEs, something I'd never told my family. At the time my brain couldn't wrap it's mind around complex sentences but it could, somewhat, around fashion design. 

The fact that I'd passed my Functional Skills with my teachers championing me forward for my GCSE's meant the world to me. But what broke me down was that I wasn't sharing this with my family. 

For reasons my brain can't understand but my heart does my family no longer contact me. I hope they are okay, I like to think they are well, getting on with life. I'm grateful, my family were there for me for the first year and a half, through all my mistakes and victories and helping me through panic attacks. 

I've never had any certificates for my achievements before, so here I am with a few, and I couldn't call up my mum and say "look, I did", and have her reply "I always knew you could," and maybe the point is I don't need to because that's what would happen, but that doesn't mean it doesn't make my heart ache.

My only regret is that I didn't take the chance to call her more often. There were times when I really needed to here her voice but I would convince myself I could do it, I was fine, and she's probably busy, despite promising her that if I ever felt like that I would call her. I think it stems from so many years of being so physically close and unable to talk to her because of my own mental issues. A lot of years spent silent and listening and now I have this space to find my voice and the people I want to tell the most are no longer there. I do wish I'd told them I love them more often. The grief still hits me, more so now due to all these new adventures. Sometimes I'm afraid I've lost them until I remember that's impossible. Sometimes I'm not even sure if I care, if I love them still, or not. But then life keeps moving. Between life, college, two kittens and a partner, plus my partner's family sometimes I don't have time to miss my family. But then I do, every time I walk into college I think of how right they were, when almost three years ago I'd missed my career advice meeting within those walls. They'd told me, during my panic attack, that somehow this is the way things are meant to be, that they will work out and I will be okay. I still miss them and I don't think that'll ever go away until I see them again. 

I'm moving forward and taking GCSE English and Level 2 Business Administration (with the hopes of being a better employee). For reasons beyond my control my results for my GCSE maths haven't returned to me yet so I don't know in what section I'd be placed, so my plan is to do my GCSE maths next year so that I'm not getting overwhelmed (Business Admin is a full day and a half and can be pretty intense first thing in the morning). In so many ways it's a lot better for me as I tend to push myself well beyond the 150% that I try to give. So, if I didn't have my partner trying to get me to rest more I supposed the Universe will do it for me.






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