Why Change?

I am just going to put it out there; I dislike that life is a linear timeline. The chain of events that it is cause and effect bother the hell out of me. Everything I do in my life impacts how my life will be for the rest of my life. Every moment I want to take back and redo... either I can't or in doing so I waste a little bit more of my preciously short life span. By extension I really struggle with change. Every change represents the end of something, something I will never be able to go back to.

I am currently sitting inside the circus cannon, that is to say I'm merely weeks from the end of my university degree. Waiting patiently for somebody to finish mixing the gun powder which will be used to propel me into the real world. Will it work? There is a lot of trust in the functions of the universe (the gun powder mixers) that it will all work out for the best.That I won't overshoot the mat nor will the cannon explode around me without ever ejecting me. (Maybe I shouldn't think in detail about potential disasters for human cannonballs.)

In simple terms, change unsettles me. I become a crying wreck at the drop of a hat. My sleep patterns become more dishevelled than they already are. My whole confident personality begins to dissolve around me. I'll be honest in saying that at 21 there haven't been a hell of a lot of major change moments in my life. High school graduation, the completion of my gap year of work, the completion of my undergrad training course, and the now the completion of my undergraduate degree (I don't count the changes prior to my being  independent in this predicament.)

Here, at university, I have a good group of friends, all the interest groups I could ever want, a great Christian community, more spare time than I can justify. Graduation means becoming separated from all of my classmates who are being spread literally from Perth to Sydney across Australia. Graduation means moving away from the communal living blocks I've become accustomed to. Leaving behind every friend I have in the lower years.

Yes, I make it sound much more depressing than exciting. Leaving the confines of university is supposed to be exciting isn't it? I forget sometimes, finishing uni means no more endless hours of studying things for some singular 2% assignment. No more listening to the lecturer explain that some completely obscure proof of a simple engineering principle is entirely essential to my existence. No more warped schedules where the line between work and play is so blurred I have to doubt it exists at all. Except there's no guarantees there at all, engineers are notorious workaholics. I'll be worked to the bone till the day I die.

The biggest change is definitely in the issue of friends. I've been spoilt this year, my best friend came to the same university as of this year. Its the first time we've lived in the same state since high school graduation 4 years before. Next year I'll move away again. Away from her, away from all of my classmates, away from friendships that took me literally years to set up. I was very alone for my first two years of university. I live in fear that I'm within months of going back to that hopeless, often socially incompetent girl. People would say that's impossible, but I can already feel the landslide inside myself. Here's to optimism I guess...