Will I miss this place?

A Look at Lincoln…

I moved to Lincoln for University in 2008 and I’ve had a love-hate relationship with the place ever since…and to be totally honest, I’m not entirely sure why.

I decided to move away to University last minute because I’d become so bored of my crappy little life at the time that I’d started making some horrendous life choices – ranging from choosing not to be with the guy that I was in love with and running away from that situation, to having a sortof fling with a guy who was part of a couple I was good friends with (cringe, I know). Then I met Rachael, and she was good, complicated as hell but good. That was still a sticky situation at the time, but it worked out for the best for us so I won’t dwell on that!

So I moved to Lincoln. I didn’t pick it for its beautiful Cathedral or its location in rural Lincolnshire, I choose it because I’d been there once for an hour and thought it was as good a place as any to start fresh (life choices at this point were still not great). So I left, I decided the day before UCAS clearing that I was gonna do it, and 3 weeks later I was enrolling on my uni course and living in student accommodation, miles away from anyone I knew and I left it all behind. I kept n touch with friends and went back frequently to see some people, but I worked hard on my relationship with Rach (she was a student at Loughborough at the time) with us both travelling to each other, and I made it work. I liked Lincoln, it was nice. The nightlife was a bit awful for my tastes…but compared to Liverpool, I knew I was up against this before I left. The shops do not really cater much for a plus size girl like me so that was a bit of a dud and other than Uni and a few friends I had there, Lincoln never offered me much.

Then it was time to graduate. Me and Rach had been living together two years at this point, we’d decided to go on our gap year abroad and we left Lincoln. At this point I never intended to come back.

We retuned from travelling and Rach picked up her old job in Lincoln temporarily, then got offered a promotion that would mean us both moving back there – so we did. Not because I wanted to, and I really didn’t want to at this point – it made me miserable for a while infact but this was what was best for us for our long term goals of Australia.

But now it’s three years on and I’m faced with this, I have three months left in this city I’ve known to call home over the last few years and I’ve come to appreciate it for its beauty, it’s simplicity and for the people I have met here. It’s where I changed my path in life, where I refused to give up and let life wash over me and where I took control over my life…or at least co-took control of my life, learning to adapt to a new life with my other half. And I call her that not because I don’t like the term girlfriend (even though it does sound a bit pubescent) …but because she and I are complete opposites. I love the stuff she hates and vice versa, it makes no sense that we would choose a life of compromise together rather than be happy with someone else similar to ourselves, but we push eachother out of our comfort zones and we make it work – we make each other better and for that she is my other half. And I think for the same reasons, Lincoln has sort of become the  other half to my home. It’s where I built my business, it’s where I found some great friends and it’s where I’ve learnt to compromise.

So will I miss it? Yes, and No. I will miss the Christmas markets and the water front, I will miss the quirky cinema in the woods but mostly I will miss it for the reasons I miss any place, for the people I’ve met.