The last time we were both in Swansea together, we were stood on the pavement outside of our 3rd year house. A quiet moment a day full of packing and cleaning and running to and from the car. We didn’t speak.
Tom walked away first and I lingered until his voice called me down the street.
The last time we were in Swansea at the same time, we hadn’t graduated yet. We didn’t know what we were graduating with, didn’t know what the year was going to hold, hadn’t even booked our 6 months away.
We left with half-goodbyes and mixed feelings, but both of us looked back as we drove away.
This time we drove there in the car we own together. We walked down a road we used to walk along every day (or every month) for lectures but this time we were talking about our jobs and not the hours spent in a lecture hall.
The sun was shining, something I remember it doing much more than it actually did when we were there, and we had ice lollies by the beach.
Everything was familiar in such a strange way. There’s the building that started the whole thing. There’s the house we fell in love in. There’s the coffee shop that saw so many different conversations. There’s that hill that I swear got steeper each time we walked up it.
“I was telling someone the other day about that quote I always talk about from our first Freshers magazine. Remember the one? It said that Swansea was the city where dreams go to die. I remember reading it, my first week of Freshers, and thinking what, why would you say that to a new student?! But it went on to say that it’s because you come to Swansea and you stay there. So your dreams don’t die, you just create new ones that keep you in the city.”
We loved Swansea. It was such a fun place to live. It was where we grew up, properly, into people we’re proud of today. We met there. We fell in love there.
Driving through Uplands with Tom, it’s hard to describe the feeling that place gave us.
“I never thought like that about Swansea though. I don’t know why, because it definitely felt like home but more… it was home for those three years. Like I knew that after that, I wouldn’t come back. Does that make sense?”
Have you ever walked down the corridors of your old school and you swear you can almost see a younger version of you just ahead, talking about all of the things that life meant to you at that moment? You’re so close, a hair’s breadth away from being back in that moment, except your feet remain firmly in the presence and instead the building feels smaller and you feel bigger and you smile and find your seat because some things can never be returned to.
“See this road Sam? I used to walk down here everyday to go to University. It hasn’t changed at all.”
Which was true. Swansea hadn’t.
But we have.
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