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Feeling Young and Old at the Same Time. By Tasha.

Hi, I’m Tasha. I’m an estranged undergraduate student and I enjoy hiking, kayaking and DJing. I wanted to discuss how different I feel to my peers and why this is the case for me – in particular the sense of not belonging rooted in lacking life skills because of my childhood.

I remember first becoming estranged. I moved to another part of the country and into a rental househare, just a few months after I completed my A-Level exams. I remember how my older brother got the train up from where he was based to see me, to help me collect my keys, to head to Dunelm with me to buy duvet covers, a wok, towels, to take me out for a meal. And then he headed back to his home and I was left by myself. I remember how mature I felt. It felt like the start of a new adventure; rebirth and reincarnation as a new person, almost.

I also remember the panic I felt when I realised that I did not know how to do things that typical adults do. One of the ways in which my parents made my life difficult when I was living with them was by denying me an education on basic life skills, as a form of control. The first time I ever cut an onion was at the age of 19, after moving into this houseshare. I remember the kinds of meals I used to make, hands trembling as I tried to work out if the oil was too hot, head turning at any sound, terrified that one of my housemates would enter the kitchen and see that I was an adult that didn’t know what I was doing. There were many instances where I made mistakes that lots of children wouldn’t even make. I accidentally killed our washing machine by leaving a coin in the pocket of my jeans. I left my damp clothes in the machine for too long and they started to smell bad. I let the oil heat up in the pan for too long and set off the fire alarm. I undercooked chicken and got food poisoning. It was extremely difficult to navigate moving out for the first time, searching for a job, and learning how to look after myself because nobody had taught me how. It was hard to balance but I did make it work. One of the few benefits of this was discovering my passion for cooking, ignited by a flatmate’s judgment of my poor kitchen skills. This encouraged me to learn to cook properly, and, after a rough start, I can genuinely say that I love to cook now, and love discovering and learning new recipes.

When I first moved into student halls at university, despite all of my flatmates being gap year student and some of them being older than me, I felt so so old in comparison to them. Sometimes it feels like I have lost all the joy I had in childhood, and it has been replaced with stress and responsibility that I should not have yet. Worrying about gaps in tenancies and where I will live, worrying about what I will do for money when I don’t have a job, are all things that my flatmates did not have to worry about to the same degree. For the most part,
they could stay in their family homes between tenancies and their parents could at least pay for a meal so they wouldn’t starve. It has been extremely isolating and continues to be, as we simply cannot relate to each other. Meanwhile, there is a distance between myself and people who are older than me, as I have not yet reached milestones that they have. They view me as having little life experience, simply because of my age. Even if we aren’t discussing it, I know there is a big gap between myself and those who are not estranged. The added responsibility makes me feel older. Moving myself into my university
accommodation makes me feel older. It feels like I have been forced to develop too quickly in some ways and haven’t developed at all in other ways.

Thankfully for me, I recently found community in my university city through All of Us. Speaking to other estranged students has genuinely been such a good way for me to relate to other people like me, who are in similar situations. I really do appreciate All of Us due to this.

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