3F1 55 S. Clerk St

I’m feeling a little sad. I only have fifteen or so days left in my flat on South Clerk Street. My flatmates, Christophe, Dominik, Sabine, Seymour, Sarah, Flo and Dario are all milling around in a strange sort of atmosphere. It’s too early to pack but it’s also too late to start doing anything new. We’re all in limbo for the next week and a half. Well some of us, me and Seymour should be scrambling to finish our dissertations before the 24th. A not entirely welcome distraction.

It’s been a funny old year, but a hugely enjoyable one and I wouldn’t change it for the world. You see, I like it here. I like my room and I like the people and the view and the comfort and freedom that comes with living here. I am very glad that I have decided to stay here for a further year – possibly more. Although I don’t get to keep the room, I have to find myself new lodgings, real ones for real people with real lives and real money. I'm sure the future can't be all that bad, and in fact, so long as I keep my head screwed on and my ears open, the future looks rather bright for little old me.

Yet looking around I once again have this astonishing sense that this room and this building has been the scene of a massive missed opportunity. My first instinct seems to be to remember all the things that I meant to do, but didn’t, rather than all the things that I did actually do. This applies to my whole life and when I think back to various stages of it, I always seem to feel regret first. I assume this is natural.

If I pay attention and think about what I have actually done – I’m actually quite pleased with myself. Lots of personal demons were conquered and I now feel more or less ready to have a go at the real world. I feel much more comfortable in accepting that my student days are now over than I ever did thirteen or fourteen months ago. My modest achievements have been far from perfect and in fact everything I think back to as a positive came as the result of an all mighty muddle. But I think the most important point is that I have become willing to seek out these muddles and put myself into them. Doing this has not always been enjoyable, in fact it has never been, and I have suffered, and continue to suffer for it.

Yet as the sun sets once more on this beautiful city I am quietly very happy that I have something to feel sad about.