There always seems to be plenty for people to complain about in Oxford. From late nights in libraries to crunch-time exam season, it’s never hard to find people on Oxfess or overhear them on Broad Street talking about their latest woes, academic or otherwise. It’s an enveloping force, a key part of being socially included: “This essay’s due in an hour”, “I’ve got a reading list the length of my arm”, “a 9am every day this week”. It’s also something I’ve always felt utterly excluded from.
Growing up, my mother experienced mental health problems, which meant that she was not present in our family home from when I was ten, my brother six. I grew up with an immigrant single father who juggled caring for us on one income with full-time work, without any family to fall back on in a country that has grown increasingly hostile to immigrants. But, unlike the everyday concerns that come with doing a degree, these are not socially acceptable problems to complain about: not something people can use to relate to one another.
I do not say this to condemn people who vent their worries about academic work, or who find that being in Oxford really does cause serious distress. I know from first-hand experience how important it is to seek help if you find yourself deeply unhappy with your life, however aspirational that life might seem to others. All the same, if Oxford does get you down, I think we could learn something from each other.
For a long time, I allowed my early life to define how I saw myself here. I thought of myself as naturally set apart, unable to take part in the rituals of waving goodbye to parents as they dropped me off at the start of term, looking forward to calls from home, and visiting in the vac. Doing laundry one night, staring at the row of washing machines spinning in perfect unison, I realised the opposite is true. I am a person in the world, just like anyone else. Perhaps my experiences are not a handicap, but a help.
When I sit down to Teddy Hall’s “ming” dinners every night, I know how to appreciate the guarantee of a meal that’s been cooked for me. When I get back to my room in the evening and turn the heating up, I know what a luxury it is to be sure I can do this, not just for that night, but every night. And when there are bad moments (and there are), I face it. I sign up to help the freshers move in, and when I look for the jealousy I think I should feel at the family relationships I see, it’s only vestigial. I make myself join in conversations when the topic turns to home and family. I remind myself that there are a million things I have that others don’t.
I think I’ve been coasting on other people’s happiness for a long time now. It’s part of why I felt I ought to write this – everyone who has ever made some passing joke or shown some heartfelt nostalgia for their childhood in front of me has helped me to see that there are always ways to catch up on happiness, and to appreciate seeing it in others. This is my odd way of returning the favour – of saying that, if you feel things are tough for you here, try to hold on to the little moments that remind you how lucky you are to be here.
Go cycling down Broad Street with the sun in your face and the wind in your hair and that interminable pile of books in the basket. Volunteer, if you can, in your local community and see how possible it is to make a difference in the world. If there’s something you want that you think you can’t have, some unreachable point you’re always striving for, take little steps. When a girl sits down opposite me in the library with her hair in two neat braids, I no longer think of all the things my mother couldn’t pass down to me. Instead, it’s just another thing I might learn one day, another joy left for me to discover.
Now, at the start of my final year, it’s difficult to imagine having regrets about being at Oxford, whatever it might bring. The sort of perfectionism that gets to so many people here, I’ve found, only becomes grating when it’s exclusively turned inwards. I might never be a great painter, but the museum’s as open to me as anyone else.
