The letter I never wrote...

What is this letter, and why did I never write it? You might ask...

If there's one thing about life I've learned so far, it's that nothing is ever easy. Growing up we all undergo change, whether it be a physical change - such as getting taller or older - or a non physical change, such as shifts in attitude. How we deal with these changes defines us, perhaps more than the changes themselves, and we encounter change every day, so what then has this got to do with a letter?

If anyone asked me, I would, I think, be able to quite easily pinpoint times in my life of particularly big change. Moving school in year 3, the transition from primary to secondary education, Soul Survivor 2012 (although maybe not outwardly), Sixth form and, you guessed it, University. This list might not necessarily be the same for everybody, but it does give a pretty good idea of what significant change can look like, and all of these things (Soul Survivor excepted) have one thing in common. Moving on.

Whenever we spend time in a place, we begin to build connections, both to the place itself and the people there. If we spend long enough somewhere, those connections can evolve into friendships, and bonds between people so strong they become a part of who we are. It is however something of a sad truth that often we don't realise how much these people mean to us until they are gone. We begin to take for granted what we have, and suddenly we have to move on, and we're just waving goodbye, having left so much unsaid, so much undone...

In a way, moving onto university, this letter was supposed to tie all that up, a kind of final goodbye in a way, so that if I never saw someone again, then at least I'd know I hadn't left any loose ends. I initially planned to do one of these for every person I was leaving behind, but as the title of this post suggests, that didn't happen, and I was instead in a situation where I had to rush writing the letters for just three people. Of those, only one actually received a letter, and he probably isn't even going to read this.

As for the other two, I guess some things are just too difficult to say sometimes... Ultimately I decided that a letter was just not necessary, as what I wanted to say was irrelevant, and I wanted to leave on good terms, but events in the past few weeks made me realise just how wrong I was keeping these things to myself. This stuff has been weighing on me ever since I left, and to be honest, I just couldn't deal with it... So I wrote the letter...

Well, one of them... I should probably clarify these are about vastly different things. Who knows if I'll ever write the other one really...

I drew this random picture, which I think quite nicely sums up what I'm trying to say, because I got sidetracked and to be honest I really don't know any more...

Most of you reading this will be able to instantly recognise Alpha and Omega, the first and last letters of the Greek alphabet, but what you might miss from looking at this picture initially is the Greek letter Delta, the symbol used to represent "change in." I suppose what I'm getting at here is that no matter who you are, or where you come from, there will always be beginnings, there will always be endings and, no matter what you may try and do to prevent it, there will always be change. Don't leave things unsaid, no matter how much you might want to or they might terrify you, because one day you may find that the person you needed to say them to isn't there any more...

"Things end, things begin. This is the way of the castle, this is the way of the world."