andrew-kirkpatrick

After what seems like forever, I saw my cousin graduate from Cambridge University on Saturday, with my grandparents in tow (who have been staying with us for a few days now) and my aunt, uncle and his brother and wife. Very proud moment for everyone I think, emphasized somehow by the fact my family (or the family that I acknowledge, but that's another story) is Chinese, but all-round a fantastic achievement for her. Of course she's now got to go off and figure out what to do with the rest of her life, but hey that's the whole different adventure. Still seems like yesterday, or at least a week ago, when I was in VIth form and she'd just come over to boarding school for year 9 (her parents are fairly affluent) and now she's graduated and University for me seems quite a while ago now.

I think that's what I've found quite weird though, seeing the cycle complete for her and now that I've returned home for a while kind of thinking about where I'm at. I know that in a way it was kind of necessary for me to take a break from things, especially London, to figure out where my life is going bar simply working wherever I happened to get a job. In a weird way I expected returning home to be just like when I used to come back from University inbetween term time, but it's not. The friends I expected to be hovering around aren't anymore, they're either not here themselves or tied up with girlfriends, wifes or even kids. Kids... now that's a scary thought! Meanwhile I've jumped from place to place for literally years now, and having finally gone back to square one, I need to have a long hard think about where to next, if anywhere at all.

It's going to take a fair few weeks to think this over, but I need to figure this out before I end up rooted in my hometown, like all too many people I know have. Question is, would that be such a bad thing, or is there somewhere else I would rather be...