Look at you go! You did it! You had a couple of lost years and a bit of a quarter life crisis, but you did it. You found your way back and now you’re in uni doing stuff you’re super into. You’re studying Behavioural Science (with a minor in counselling which you never failed to mention because you were so excited) and your mind is opening up all the time about social justice issues and so many types of psychological theories.
It is so effing awesome that you finally understand what you are supposed to be doing. You aren’t the girl who went straight from school to uni to study teaching, not really knowing what life was about, anymore. You are a woman with life experience who has learned that studying when you have a passion for something is so fulfilling and your motivation levels are popping!
You have made good friends who have absolutely encouraged you and kept your morale up and have been invaluable when it comes to those moments you have no fucking idea what you’re supposed to do. Hopefully you’re doing the same for them in some way.
But, dude. This was about the time Facebook became a thing. Facebook statuses became a thing. This was no Myspace, y’all. No glittery patterned backgrounds. No edgy dance music auto-playing when you visited a profile. I think I can recall you saying, “So is this just Twitter with pictures and shit?”
Once you got the hang of it, you tried to update your status at least once daily. I mean, you didn’t want to be too annoying.
But girl…you totally were.
How do I know? I know because in 2019 there is this thing called Facebook Memories. It’s been around for a little while now. And I have to tell you, nobody cares what word count you were up to in that essay you can’t remember.
I mean, I cringe every time I see a new ‘memory’ about you whinging about your bloody homework! Every DAMN DAY of every DAMN UNI SEMESTER. And none of the really rad stuff that happened is on record. Just the whiny bits. What the hell?
Like, why did you rarely to never mention the bloody awesome Fremantle lifestyle? The pubbing on lunch breaks? The 3 hour boozy lunches at Little Creatures brewery before returning for tipsy counselling tutorials – during one of which we were told to do something hard and my friend Em pretended to get up and climb out of the window (it was the second storey) because she had a twisted sense of humour.
The times Bam Bam (that older hippie chick with the big hair in a big fountain of frizz) kept asking questions at the END of a lecture and nobody never managed to get out of there on time!
The way your friend could drink a pint of beer in like 2 seconds and you egged her on shamelessly. Many many times.
The love that you felt for your uni friends each time they felt strong enough to come out as gay or bi (seriously almost all of them did eventually haha).
The amazing stuff you learned that blew your mind about white privilege, sexuality, paternalism, social psychology etc.
The times you raced into class a bit late because you were busy doing your dog walking job and you couldn’t remember if you smelled like shit or not because one of your clients fed their dog too much human food and it did about fifteen shits in half an hour and you had to scoop all of it up into little bags.
You had an embarrassment of riches when it came to social media material.
In all fairness, you were probably paranoid about the people involved reading that shit, but whatevs. You came off pretty boring and obnoxious anyway! I know. I’m being a bit harsh, but it’s true. That’s OK.
Like were those posts about how hard it was getting your schedule for the semester necessary every single semester?
Anyway, I love you. You did some amazing things, but it’s time to take a stand. It’s now February (the beginning of every university year) and the posts are appearing again. I have decided that the most mundane uni related posts have got to go. I just can’t read them anymore. Now before you protest and tell me I’m trying to rewrite my history, hold your horses. I am not erasing everything. I’m talking about the completely insignificant, irritatingly boring stuff that I don’t even remember doing. That stuff.
Just for the hell of it, I’ll mention that one day you will laugh at the fact that you thought it was so cool of you to graduate from a flip phone to a SLIDE phone. Hilarious. Yes, kudos to you for getting through uni without a smart phone. You caught buses and trains WITHOUT A PHONE TO STARE AT. You couldn’t document all of your day. AMAZING.
Also, the iinet guy (the one in the ads) went to your uni at the same time as you and seeing him and then seeing buses drive past him with his face on them was always amusing. Also, you had to repeat ethics (shut up – long story – I’m very ethical just like Kristen Bell in The Good Place LOL) and there was a future Married At First Sight douche in that class and he was so know it all, condescending, and when you saw him on the show many years later you recognised him and wanted to spew a little in your mouth.
Anyway, back on topic *ahem*
I know your final year of uni everybody’s lives blew up in some way or other. Some situations were more obvious than others. You all got pretty down at times and sometimes there was friction. The pressure was pretty full on. You all had worked so hard and graduating was so important to you.
But damn…you didn’t know how to be vulnerable yet. You didn’t know how to reach out properly. You just kind of whined about shallow stuff. I am so proud of how far you’ve come since then. We just don’t need to revisit it all in Facebook form, ‘k? You know what I’m saying?
May 2019 be a time where you are less irritating to think about on social media haha.
Warmest regards,
2019 Kez xoxo
