Moving to Winchester was one of the hardest things I’ve ever done. Not knowing what kind of person I’ll be when I finished university, compared to the person I was when I started, is a very jarring thing to come to terms with. It’s something I don’t think I was ever fully prepared for.

All of a sudden I’m this new person in this new city where no one knows that I have scoliosis or watch Formula One or played Boris Johnson in my A-Level Drama exam. No one tells you in their Fresher’s Guides that you have to pack up all those bits of you and actively think about how you’re going to present yourself to strangers. And when the oh my god we just met and I can’t believe I’m telling you my life story parts of you come spilling out, it’s a terrifying commitment to your still-developing identity.

I met one of my now housemates for the first time on Halloween when we were freshers, outside our first-year halls. We shared a mutual friend and the three of us agreed that it would be a nice idea to walk into town and get a coffee. I don’t think anyone has ever gotten to know me in such a short span of time. Drinks flowed and so did our embarrassing stories about secondary school, shared boy trauma, and spicy political takes. I have similar stories like this for each of my housemates and friends, the driving force being my urge to dump my life on someone the moment I get comfortable with them.

In the year we’ve lived together, I’ve looked at each of my housemates and thought: How do you know things about me I didn’t understand before I told you? We’re standing in this kitchen at 6 pm on a Tuesday and you see me like no one else has been able to the 20 years I’ve been alive.

Before you know it, you’ve done it, you’re not Ellie in Northampton anymore, you’re Ellie in Winchester, and you sit by the cathedral after lectures with your earl grey from Costa because the kettle in your flat broke, or you’re Ellie in Winchester who stays up until midnight with her housemates in second year because at first, you were just having a relaxing evening, but then you got motivation for an assignment and there isn’t a better time like the present to work on it.

My housemates and I recently began the new, and final, year of our renewed tenancy agreement. One more year of living in Winchester is almost as terrifying as the beginning when it was three years, and in the middle when it was two because this marks one year until it comes to an end. And once it ends, I’ll package Winchester Ellie in bubble wrap and figure out how to take her with me on whatever adventure comes next, just like I did with Northampton Ellie.

I can’t wait to see what the next year brings, and I can’t wait to be sad about the person I’m leaving behind when I leave. Love you, Winchester, the only place in the world, filled with the only people in the world, worthy of such cringey, sentimental words.

❤