Change

Change is something I've never been good with. From big changes like leaving school, starting a new job, or my last writing retreat with uni last week, to smaller changes like each Doctor Who regeneration, a new cover of my favourite book, or the slightly updated opening to a TV I watch, change has never been something I've loved, unless under specific circumstances.

Over the years, I've encountered lots of different change and it always makes me feel... something inside. That something has always been different with each change, but it has never been fully good.

I remember leaving secondary school. I was seventeen and it was 2020. Aside from replacing exams with assessments during quarantine, the pandemic meant we finished school early. This was supposed to be a great time, a high point. I no longer had to deal with school, I was free, and for the first few weeks, it was. Then the anxiety hit. I was out of school with no concreate plans, confined to my house and garden due to the pandemic, with no idea what the future would hold. I felt unprepared and afraid. Between the pandemic and leaving school, the change was sudden and I never properly considered 'what next' until the summer when I had all my school work in and waited on my exam results coming back. Any other situation, I would have said that I didn't have time to think about it, but with the lockdown giving me more time than I should have had to think, I'm surprised this didn't happen earlier. The piles of books and dozens of poems I wrote during this time helped me to avoid the anxiety up until that point, but I sometimes wonder what would have happened if I dealt with it earlier - would I have still been the same person? I always knew that change wasn't fun, but this was the first big example of it for me.

And now, I'm coming to the end of uni, with several ideas for the future, I've learned that change isn't always a bad thing, still necessary, even if I still don't like it. I got home from my final writing retreat with uni on Saturday and, like the summer I left school, I knew it would be my last but it didn't fully hit me until the next day, where I started crying. Now, however, I don't feel as anxious. The last few years have been full of new experiences, new people, new places, largely thanks to those writing retreats. Now, I'm part of a group chat with some of the great people I've met from them, I've travelled around to meet some, and I'm considering planning my own.

Sometimes, even small change makes me cycle through my emotions. I've been watching the modern revival of Doctor Who on and off since 2017. I had seen episodes here and there before, but had finally decided to sit down and watch it. At first, I got through it quite slow, only fully watching three seasons within three years, but in 2023, I got more committed to watching it. Very quickly into his run, Matt Smith became my favourite Doctor, his general aura, his confidence, the way Matt Smith bounces of Karen Gillan and Arthur Darvill, all of it was perfect. Then I saw the Christmas special on Trenzalore, where we lose him as the doctor, and I was devastated by the ending. I always knew it was coming, but I couldn't deal with it. I mourned his loss as if he was a close friend.

Fast forward a few months later, however, and I don't think I can ever love a Doctor as much as Peter Capaldi and his grumpy, yet caring portrayal. I'm currently on his last season and I know I'll go through all of this again soon, but I've been reminded of how just because one Doctor was great, doesn't mean the next one won't be.

Overall, I've never liked change. It's scary and hard to deal with, but I do deal with it, we all do. The thing about change is though, that even the most new kinds of change can have similarities in other experiences and if you've made it through those changes, you can use it through the next change. While I still don't like it, I think understood how I can get through it. I think everything will be ok.