02 Jul 2020

At the end of last year amidst a whirlwind of study and work, I decided the time had come to embark on the eternal, ever alluring, gap year.

In choosing this, I happily deferred my university course, booked flights to Europe and started scrolling through Instagram trying to find the perfect place in Paris for a good smashed avo on toast.

Then early March rolled around and in the space of about two weeks, I lost my retail job, lost my flights to Europe and was unable to cancel my deferment to get back into uni. So, for the first time in my life, I found myself without any study, work and friends to physically see.

 

Like everyone else during lock down, I chatted with friends over Facetime. However, what I quickly learnt was how I was in a very different position to many of them. Some were still buried under books at university, whilst others were holding onto invaluable jobs.

Meanwhile, I listened to their stories, but often felt like a washed up sea-shell that no longer had the glittery exterior of study or work to define themselves by. As the weeks in lockdown sluggishly strolled by me, I came to realise that what I did learn was in a way some ways very similar to what I would have learnt taking the traditional Euro gap year.

I learnt about what it meant to live intensely with other people and about finding out who I was in the family unit. I allowed myself to critique my friendships, values and relationships with the hopes that in the future I can have more thoughtful connections with myself and others. I found hobbies that sustained me and started learning how to be comfortably happy without having anything to define myself by.

I don’t know what the rest of the year will look like for me. I don’t know if I’ll ever get my old job back or if I will travel anywhere this year. But the one thing I am grateful for was the chance to focus only on me, even if I sometimes struggled with what I did and did not find.

In that sense it’s taught me the one thing, the gap year has always offered - getting to know yourself.

Words by Aoife Hopkins-Lichtman