Well it's happened! Last week I graduated from the London School of Economics and Political Science. I have spent three very formative years studying, laughing, crying and growing in the capital. I can confidently get from Kings Cross to Covent Garden with no need for the assistance of a tube train. I attended my first march, fell in love and co wrote and presented a comedy radio show. I grew in confidence about speaking about politics and I now (provided I am in a safe public space) sometimes yell back at street harassers.

I went to New York and ate bagels and I have been to Hampstead heath and swam in a pond. I wrote to my MP and I voted in a general election. I have been to see live comedy and theatre and music and actually feel like I am legitimately a little bit cool.

I have done a lot, but I wouldn't have done it without the we and us and they that helped me. My partner, my housemates,  my friends my classmates, my teachers, my counselors my academic advisors my family my chaplain my priests at home and in London, my lecturers (note that this are not mutually exclusive categories). I have been supported, challenged, and comforted over these last three years and I feel truly blessed to have come through it all with the people who I came through it with.

So as a new chapter begins I am sure I will still be adding footnotes to the last one. I think the narratives we tell about ourselves are rarely as clear cut as they seem, little experiences stay with us without us necessarily noticing until something else makes sense of them in a new way for is. The main take home I think I have from the last three years is that life is complicated, we do things that please others and we do things that let them down and others do things that please us and then they let us down, this doesn't mean that the nice things we do are any less nice and we can get hung up in the fantasy that we can make everyone happy all the time and that we should feel happy about others all the time. But in practice I think the human spirit can withstand an awful lot of breaking and pain, we are tougher than we give ourselves credit for and there is always space and opportunity for forgiveness and reconciliation.

And now I am left with a piece of paper, a plush beaver, shed loads of memories and a photograph of myself on an elephant. I get nostalgic and a little bit sad every time I walk anywhere between Euston and Waterloo but that doesn't mean I am going to stop walking there.

Lots of love, till next time x