Not a Goodbye, but a Quiet Wave

Not a Goodbye, but a Quiet Wave of Acknowledgment

Lisel Christiansen

Six years doesn’t seem that long, until I realise that the amount of time I’ve spent at uni is the same as I spent at high school. It doesn’t quite sink in until I look back and realise how much has changed over those years.

A lot has changed, but some things are still the same. I still can’t keep my room clean to save my life, but I try more often now.

Sometimes I wonder where I would be if I had worked a little harder in that final year, gotten a better ATAR, and ended up going somewhere other than Deakin. It’s such an alien thought that I can’t even comprehend the possibility of it.

It feels like a long time ago, yet at the same time, it doesn’t.

Time’s never quite made sense to me, a weird jumbled flow that seems fast or slow at any given time for no apparent reason. Yeah, well, turns out there’s a reason for that.

When I started uni, I had a job. I worked nineteen to twenty-four hours a week around four units and had to take public transport everywhere. The mandatory 8 am lectures on Mondays were the worst, with a 5 am start to get the first bus of the day. I was going to go into science once I finished, and probably move to Europe where science and renewables are actually invested in and wanted. I was going to have an anthropology major, and there was no real plan beyond that. A real plan was future Lisel’s problem. It still is.

Now I can wake up, throw everything together in twenty minutes, and be out of the house by 7.15 am to drive. Science still isn’t invested in, but it turns out that there’s more to the writing process than writing, so that’s where I’m going. There continues to be no bigger plan.

I found an amazing group of friends, I found out that I was queer, that genders are bullshit and that if I don’t feel comfortable being one, then I can not, and that being asexual is a thing that is valid. I changed my pronouns, but I’m just as terrible about telling people. Some things don’t change.

I joined Deakin Writers in my second year but didn’t go to a launch until the end of 2016. I wasn’t an active member until the following year when I had a class with two of the executive team, and I’ve never looked back. I made new friends, and I laughed and drank more than I had before.

I wrote, I submitted, I got accepted. I wrote, I submitted, I got rejected. I wrote some more.

I found my way onto the executive team last year, ran events for the club and magazine, then became the president. I still can’t organise my life or get it under control, but I continue to pick up more responsibility than I should. I have since come into the position of Queer Representative for the campus committee. I’ve had a blast despite all the anxiety that it sometimes gives me.

Not a Goodbye, but a Quiet Wave of Acknowledgment

I’ve moved out twice. Both times were great because, damn, is it good to have your own space. Both ended with a butting of heads with one housemate. I yelled and screamed and became passive-aggressive. As much as I like living with other people, perhaps it’s just not for me.

I started playing D&D, I loved it, and still do. I will talk passionately, and at length, about the hijinks my characters have gotten up to, and if nothing else, I always know that Wednesday night is D&D night—and you will take that away from me over my cold dead body. Unless there’s a WORDLY launch.

Some friends finished uni. I found new ones.

Last year I quit my job after having stayed way too long, and only because I was getting more muscular injuries that were only a problem at work. I remember that my last shift was Easter Sunday and that my Opa went into hospital that day. That’s something that’s changed as well. We found out about the tumours the next day. He didn’t want chemo. He said that eighty was too old and seventy-nine was a good time to go. He was always a quality over quantity kind of guy. He died a few weeks later at home, surrounded by family, while I was on the other side of town desperately trying to finish up an assignment. We laughed, we cried, we celebrated his life. I bottled it up. It was a first, and there have been a lot of those moments since then, some good, some bad. Many of them were tinged with sadness and nostalgia. I still can’t think about it too much without choking up.

I couldn’t read the words that were on the page, I knew what they were, but they didn’t string together. They weren’t making sense. I was scared. That was wrong. Throughout everything I’ve been through, I could always read. I did something about it, and did it immediately, which was a first. I was told, ‘I don’t know if you have ADHD or you’re depressed.’ It was probably both, probably still is. Time doesn’t make sense, but at least now I know why. My headspace doesn’t work like it used to. It’s so much more unreliable now.

I still don’t know what I’m doing, but people seem to think I do. I don’t offer up affection like I did before, and I don’t always feel comfortable in my own skin or around others, even friends. I still can’t bring myself to contact people, send them a simple ‘Hey, how’s it going?’ without feeling incredibly self-conscious. It perpetuates a feeling of being left out, that I have no one to blame for but myself.

A lot has happened, and I’ve had so many experiences. There is so much more to say, but I’m out of time, out of words. So, thank you to all of those who have been with me through this. For putting up with my crap and for giving me wonderful memories that I hope we continue to add to. To all of those in the clubs and the committees and at the magazine.

And now I sit here trying to figure out where to go now that I’m done with this degree. I feel relieved that it’s finally over, but I’m also going to miss so much, even though Deakin feels so different to how it used to be in those earlier years. I’m feeling lost and uncertain as if I’m starting all over again.

But, damn, I’ve made it this far, right?

Hassaan Ahmed Jess Ali Grishtha Arya Liam Ball Melissa Bandara James Barnett Chloe Blanchard Georgie Brimer Beth Brown Briana Bullen AJ Charles Lisel Christiansen Becky Croy Alf Ciriaco Danielle Davison Rowen De Lacy Julie Dickson Julia Fazzari Gabby Matthew Galic Chantelle Gourlay Rebekah Griffin Sheridan Harris Jessica Hinschen Toby Jeffs Teodora Kopic Katie McClintock Blair Morilly Michael Pallaris Elisabeth Roberts Martine Rose Anders Ross Sini Salatas Loren Sirel Venetia Slarke Abbigail Smith Gaden Sousa Zoe Trezise Jessica Wartski Friederike Wiessner Jason Winn Jessica Wiseman