The one where the reality of moving out hits and I freak out

Yesterday I got my first University offer back, an Unconditional for Optical Dispensing in Glasgow. Not my top choice of course by I'm still waiting to hear back about that, but my plan c has now been confirmed. Essentially, whatever happens from here on out I will be living in Glasgow come September this year. I was ecstatic, about moving out, away, and on with my life. About the independence that I have craved for years finally being close enough I could almost taste it.

Ever since I can remember, University has been the only option for me. It was never a conscious decision, just one day when I was little it was there. I was going to Uni. While most my age were deciding whether or not they saw university in their future the only thing I had to consider was what I wanted to study when I got there. Not getting in simply wasn't an option, I didn't even consider it until after I had sent away my application and realised that this wasn't some kind of online shopping situation where I state why I want to have a degree, pay £23 and then they give me 5 choices of which ones I want to work for. They had to like me based on a page of less than 4,000 characters in which I had slaved over for months to make myself seem like a person they should want on their course. They had to believe in me.

Before I went to bed last night, when I finally has time to let it sink in, I realised the severity of the moment that had occured in my life. I am moving out in less than 8 months. I am leaving all that I know, not just stepping out of my secure and cozy little comfort zone that I have built for myself for the past 17 years, but totally smashing down the walls so that they can never be rebuilt in the same way. I am leaving my home, my family and my friends. And I know that all of these things will be here when I come back for weekends and summer breaks but things will be different.

 It will no longer be my home. My little brother won't tell me everything he did in school each day when he get's home, or about that funny thing that happened in maths class, or bore me to death talking about his football team. My friends will make new friends who didn't move 4 hours away from them. Everyone will move on with their lives and I will no longer be such a large part of theirs anymore.

My room will become un-entered for weeks at a time or used as a dumping ground for items with no specific place within the house. I will be the daughter who's at Uni and lives far away and that is only seen on specific occasions. To my once close cousins I will no longer be big cousin Isla they see on Sundays and that stays over during the holidays, I will be that cousin they have that lives in Glasgow learning to test eyes. I will become the sister who doesn't know that funny thing that happened in Maths class last month. I will become the once close friend who moved away and doesn't have as much time to keep in touch as she hopes and let all her best friends slip away without even realising. I don't know how to be that person.

I don't know how to be a person who has to buy towels and cutlery and surface wipes. I don't know how to be a person who irons and cooks and worries about bills. I don't know how to be a person who does her own food shop and carries it home on the bus. I don't know how to be a person with responsibilities. I don't know how to be an adult.

I know that everyone there will be in the same boat and it won't be all washing dishes and buying toilet roll, but the boring things surely outweigh the pizza for breakfast and tequila Tuesdays won't they? I hope not.