An Open Letter To My Sister On Starting University
It’s quite hard sitting down and trying to write a letter, particularly an open one, without being too self-conscious about it. I only had one experience of one university and I can’t speak for everyone. As Covid has dictated that I am unable to drop you in your university room - unless engulfed in a full hazard suit just to rearrange your posters - I’m trying to think of everything I would have wanted to say in the moment when the door is closed. Everything that mum or dad will be unable to say in the moment because they’ll be orbiting the room trying to keep busy with bedding and Tupperware before the last goodbye.
I remember when you first came into the world, and I gave our parents two options for naming you: Zoe or Hedgehog. I remember being so indignant that you were to be called neither that I refused to go to church – the ultimate rebellion of a four-year old catholic child. Then appeared this little round face which I thought was a pet, then understood to be more than a toy. You became a small person to instruct – I taught you how to climb out of your cot, made you laugh, made you cry a lot – for which I feel awful now (although I stand by my four-year old self that at times you probably deserved it). Your generosity even as a child, wanting to share your stones, your horse toys, and even your ice cream - and for us, food is a currency.
You will turn around to face the room, this new space which someone with a spreadsheet in a cramped admissions office decided to call your home. The room will feel bare for not having been lived in for so long. The plates will have much more weight in them by being university plates. Home will suddenly be a place to return to, not where you live. You won’t have heard a quiet like the sound of the door clicking shut. The beat between you going to uni to being at uni.
When meeting people for the first time, take some advice from Evelyn Waugh, who said ‘It doesn't matter what people call you unless they call you pigeon pie and eat you up.’ Remember that not all of the people you meet are meant to be friends, and a lot of people you know will be shed by second year. And the posters on the wall will change according to how you want to reinvent yourself - then there’ll be someone who’ll notice your Godfather or Beatles poster, and will recognise within you someone with good taste. And even if it’s a brief, awkward conversation, it will make you both feel normal by existing, by taking place.
Don’t worry about accidentally living with housemates who look like they’ve never seen the sun, or like they’ve crawled out of a social vacuum. They’re learning that the world doesn’t revolve around them whilst you’re learning how to make tuna pasta bake. Everyone has to learn something.
Other things you’ll discover: students can be grim, and have rancid habits like finding ketchup on toast a delicacy, or eating chicken bakes raw (this really happened). You’ll discover that Sainsbury’s basics wine is only a few sips short of acid, and that cleaning a sieve is the Gordian knot of student living.
There will be moments when you want to close the door, just to breathe and exist in the empty space between your posters, and there’ll be times when you’ll forget about home, won’t call for a while. There’ll also be times, hopefully, when you don’t just exist on food from tins.
To me you still seem like a little toddler, an embodiment of Boo from Monsters, Inc. It’s sad to think we can’t go back to playing castles and collecting sticks, although to be fair, at freshers fair there are stranger societies. You’ll still be the sister who I held in reins, who I made Santa’s footsteps for, who delighted in showing me shells or conkers – even if I dismissed them as something boring I’d seen before. I’ll still imagine you doddering along and tottering after me to show me your drawing, and the look in your face watching me to see if I’d be proud, your smile collapsing if I happened to be uninterested. You’re the sister I made imaginary worlds with, who I was protector of, then who I later learnt was a friend and someone who could support me instead. You’re the stealer of my dresses, and the voice at the end of the phone in the night. You’ve already achieved a hell of a lot, and I’m already more proud of you than I could ever possibly fathom.
Waugh also said that ‘sometimes, I feel the past and the future pressing so hard on either side that there's no room for the present at all’. University sometimes feels so intense that there’s no space to breathe - no room to settle and live. But don’t worry, you’re already living life just being part of a bigger whole. Things are happening just by you being here and existing, my little sister.
Written by Esther Bancroft
A recent graduate of Bristol university, Esther has returned to the pen to write a little bit about a little bit of everything. When not staring at a screen trying to be creative, she likes to buy books without reading them and paint pictures of the sea - which is her healthy obsession.