I’m well aware that this year, in each babbling stream of opinion I’ve spouted for the pages of The University Times, I’ve largely, no, only, written about myself. I’ve shared tidbits and sly nods to nights Snapchat will never forget and moaned at length about the ordeal that was the Academic Registry. To reiterate that article, computer says no. I’d have made Narcissus proud no doubt, but can you blame me? The wonderful melodrama that is first year fits so neatly on a blank, white page. Every kitchen sink laced with vomit, lost debit card or poisonous bottle of Revero (don’t even try convince yourself you can chug this bargain-value battery acid) can be simmered down and streamlined into ink and pixels that tell others just what it is we’ve been doing for the opening chapters of “BA” – part one of four.
Though for this, my final installment in the saga that was first year, I’m choosing to cast my gaze towards those who’ve, until now, played the supporting role in my scandals. The menagerie of faces, voices and daring fashion choices that populate Trinity Hall, which is where I live, in case I haven’t stressed that enough already. There’s plenty to choose from: the dark-haired “buzzer” from “Cark” who spent Paddy’s day slumped in a lift, the Cavan redhead who gallantly tried and failed to gain entry to Hall Ball (though she ended up being both Guestlist and VIP for St Vincent’s A&E) and did I mention the boy who on three occasions returned from late-night adventures with hopes of making culinary wonders, only to fall asleep in front of the oven as chicken tenders turned to ash? He survived but, alas, his kitchen will never smell the same again.
We shall all scatter next year as rent prices force us to every other part of Dublin we never knew existed till daft.ie brought grim reality crashing down
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These anecdotes are perhaps slanted towards the more trivial end of the spectrum. These aren’t moments that defined us or our year, but are merely footnotes in the story. The most endearing memories are ones that didn’t call for shots of poitín and a quick tap on Vipsy. The moments that have lasted, those that have bred the blackest of ink, they’re not what you’d call obvious. It’s the instances when you’re forced to stop and consider that your life has indeed been changed for the better by the people you met many weeks ago in the golden days of Michaelmas. It’s friends dancing in the kitchen as Lorde’s “Greenlight” blares aloud. You watch them sway, foolish yet carefree, and realise that you no longer need to lie in bed and hum away to a darkened room. You can now revel in a shared experience. You have something your adolescence always lacked: community. It’s being cooked a hot meal by a friend who realised the only food you owned was brown bread and hummus. It’s having your iron turned off by a flatmate who looked at their phone to see nine increasingly panicked texts from an eejit oblivious to fire safety. It’s all of you, my photogenic friends, whose smiles and smoulders litter my Instagram and grant me shameless vapid likes (the best kind there is).
In essence, I want this piece to be a farewell to you all. Not a eulogy, that word is too final. We shall all scatter next year as rent prices force us to abandon the Eden of Rathmines and flee to the Stoneybatters, Santrys, Drumcondras and every other part of Dublin we never knew existed till daft.ie brought grim reality crashing down. We had our year of community and camaraderie and although, yes, I shall have the good fortune to return next year as resident party planner, I know without a doubt that it will not and cannot be the same. To the girls of Annex, I won’t lie to you. I can’t stand the thought of passing your window and seeing another’s face through the glass, different pots on the counter, the same stains on the walls. To 84:16, your Christmas tree of naggins shall no longer twinkle and the polaroid I took will be peeled off your fridge. To my own apartment, I’ll miss the beautiful disaster that was our kitchen, the dishes, the smell, the wooden floors, even the ants, not to mention philosophical conversations on the “REAL meaning of Black Mirror”.
I’ve so many more pages I could fill and enough ink to pollute that stagnant pond
None of this will feel right at the start, and perhaps it never will. Others will sleep in our rooms, sit on our benches and give new names to the ducks we were so fond of. When we all pack our bags and hand in our key cards, I think then it’ll hit us. We’ll be struck and perhaps stunned by the complexity of it all, the many memories we’ll be afraid to forget, the conversations lost to absent minds, the simple comfort of a friend across the courtyard. Our bubble was too perfect to last, but I’m ever grateful it soared as high as it did.
Promise me you won’t drift too far. A year was hardly enough, hardly fair. I’ve so many more pages I could fill and enough ink to pollute that stagnant pond. The stories we’ve already made are practically infinite and I do believe and hope there’s more to come.
While these last few weeks slip by and we approach the dreaded “move out”, it’s probably best we don’t think of the future. As I’ve said before, there’ll come a time when we can’t just laze around these student towers and feel validated in mutual lethargy. Eventually we must grow up, be adults, be students, be all these things as others take the torch of student life and carry on as we once did. One day. But in the true spirit of Trinity Hall, let’s assume that day is neither today nor tomorrow, just a vague eventuality to be gleefully ignored. Now, if you don’t mind, I’m going to finish this sentence, draw a firm full stop and head across the courtyard to do sweet fuck all with those who taught me what it means to live life page by page.
The End of Part One.
