Near miss

"Jesus, Jesus, Jesus, Oh My God I'm Going to Die!"

My life flashes before my eyes as the car accelerates towards me before screeching to a halt just as the bumper touches my knees.

"Oh My God!! What do you think you're DOING?" I shout at the driver of the Vauxhall Astra. He has opened the door, surveying me with a stunned expression on his face. I am shaking with shock at how close I came to being knocked over. "I'm on the bloody ZEBRA CROSSING!"

"Sorry, the sun was in my eyes- I couldn't see you" he mutters.

He didn't even have his visor down.

"Yeah, well, if you'd have been going any faster you wouldn't have been able to stop in time. You could have killed me! Do you get that? Killed me! Jesus!"

He slams the door and drives away.

I lurch up the road, still stunned. That Zebra Crossing is clearly marked and worse, put there for a reason: there is a school next to it. That Zebra Crossing is not there for students (although we all use it to get to the uni library); it's there for the kids. If that had been a kid crossing when that stupid man driving was there they wouldn't have stood a chance.

I have dark purple bruises beneath my knees this morning and it didn't even knock me over; the bumper just touched me. In a fight between a pedestrian and a car it is no contest as to who will win.

Idiot drivers.

Popcorn

Pop. Pop. Pop-Pop. Pop-Pop-Pop-PoBANG!

“Was it supposed to do that?”

We peered into the pan anxiously. “Well. It seems alriWaaahhhh!” We screeched as the oil in the bottom of the saucepan spat unexpectedly.

The popcorn making was obviously not going to plan. The remains of two horribly disastrous popcorn making attempts had carefully been secreted beneath a bush in the garden, the pan (somebody else’s) was blackened permanently on the bottom and we had poured so much burnt oil into the potted plant in the corner of the kitchen that it was already visibly beginning to wilt.

“I don’t remember this being so difficult,” I frowned. “What on earth are we doing wrong? Oil? Check. Popcorn kernels? Check. Medium heat- not too high, not too low? Check."

"Maybe if we put more oil in?" Phillidia suggested.

The result was better, but still not up to form, what with half the popcorn kernels refusing to pop and those that did pop staying hard, crunchy and somewhat indigestion inducing. Not even Paul, who is literally a walking stomach and will eat anything, wanted that popcorn.

We surveyed our efforts dolefully.

"Maybe we should get Adrian from upstairs?"

We looked at the charred bottom of the (borrowed!) saucepan. At the now much depleted reserves of popcorn kernels. At the plant which was not only wilting at terrifying speed, but whose leaves were turning brown.

I nodded. "I'll go and get him."

And so we looked on in disbelief as Adrian, in one attempt, not only produced double the quantity of popcorn in half the kernels we used, but produced popcorn that was perfect- fluffy, hot and satisfyingly edible. The popcorn was, unlike our dismal attempts, wolfed down in a couple of minutes, with requests for more.

Maybe I'll just stick with the microwave-in-a-bag failsafe popcorn in the future...

Denial

My mind is chocked full of questions. Uncertainties. Dilemmas. Who am I? Am I losing myself? Am I getting the most out of uni? What do I want? Should I take a year abroad in the 3rd year? Who are my friends? What, or who, do I most value? Am I ready for a relationship right now? Am I turning into a shallow person? What is love? What is attraction?

I hoped that this break would clarify the confusing tangle of- well, I was going to say relationships (friendship and romantic) at uni, but I think it's just uni in general.

Instead I've thought and thought about it until it has become an obscure, indistinct mess in my mind.

I don't know which way to turn.

I just don't know.

I feel like putting my fingers in my ears, singing loudly and blocking it out. But I can't. Because the problems aren't external: they're in my head- the problem is, fundamentally, me.

It's been a huge transition. Everything in my world has changed. Nothing is constant. I've been transplanted from one world to another. All my friends are different; the course is completely different; I'm in a strange new part of the country; I'm having to fend for myself without any parental support; I've met more people in the shortest time than I ever have done before in my entire life. And it's good- much as I love home and it's been really great to see my family, I'm champing at the bit to get back. I'm independent now; I'm an adult. So it's not surprising that things internally have changed.

But I'm concerned. Concerned that I've changed too much. And I'm desperately clinging onto the last vestiges of the old OctoberPoppy that remained. There's not much left of me. I still don't feel like the uni self is me. I don't feel like a woman although, at almost 19 (on the 16th) and self-sufficient, I know that I am. I'm a woman. No longer a girl. The change in terminology is minute. The implications are enormous. With one last act and the old, innocent, OctoberP is completely gone. A memory. Eradicated. Part of me feels ready for the leap. But part of me is panicking. That part of me doesn't want to go back to uni; doesn't want a boyfriend; doesn't want to have to be self-reliant and grown up.

Why can't I just trust?

Leap off the bridge, eyes shut, dive in, have faith that it will all turn out ok?

Why can't I trust in the fact that I've done the hard bit- I've got through the first term at university and now it should all be downhill?

Why am I still in denial?

Why do I still feel like a scared little girl and not an adult?

Moreover, when the transition is complete and I emerge, fully fledged woman, how will I know?