First rushed draft of what could become a longer story - why I am having intense and often bad dreams about my old university. I've kept it simple and linear for now - there were other things going on too, but this is the gist. Let's see... 1987-88. A long-standing relationship broke down badly. at least partly because I was not prepared to be fully honest with her and in one respect I had been lying to her horribly. She took up with a guy who had been one of my closer friends. I took this badly. I had psychological problems and a sort of mental illness, never properly diagnosed but might have been a sort of bipolar thing. I do remember having had a really bad bike accident the previous summer -over the handlebars, headbutted tarmac (no helmet) out cold, hospital. Wondering if this contributed - actual brain damage? Ex GF said she was really worried about me for a month or two after, but everything seemed to get back to normal - appararently I had been "different". Autumn of 1987 - back to university. First few weeks spent in an empty flat where I'd previously share with friends and GF, but they'd all moved out. My bad reaction to GF going to BF was part of this, also my personality in general ( asocial?) made it hard to share space with me. Loneliness weighed heavy.
Begged university to find me a residence place. Moved into the off-campus resident site at Fifers Lane again and was a final year student living among first years. Nobody's fault here, no points of contact. I'd also arrived about five weeks into the term - newcomer among people who had already begun sorting themselves out into social groups.
Also realising I was on the wrong course and should have twigged this a lot earlier. - no interest, no desire, no motivation. Still cut up about ex GF. Possible side effects from the bike smash and nutting tarmac - wish I'd investigated this further... started drinking a lot.
Serving behind the union bar for extra income... one night a girl came in who it dawned on me was gorgeous, in a quirky way. I still wonder what the mechanism for these things is, what governs it. Didn't help that having just broken up with CM (let's call her that) there was an enormous empty void there. And this person, let's call her S, had unwittingly walked right in and... well, I was in love, or at least infatuated. A horrible mix of disasters, all at once.
Alienated, wrong course, no academic motivation or interest, few friends, and the ones I had were fast getting alienated by my horrible behaviour, tendency to be a bit of a Walter Mitty, drinking far too much, psychological imbalance, possible bipolar, on the bipolar highs I'd be babbling and making it up as I went along (Walter Mitty) esp if drunk (didn't want to acknowledge my actual history and family and background, making up entirely new alternative life histlries for myself maybe in the hope they'd stick.... ) ... also the realisation that I had no family to go home to and i was technically homeless once I had to move out of the university accommodation. (parents long separated, no contact with father, one sister didn't want me moving in even temporarily, another sister in overcrowded house with her own woes, mother unable to accomodate me... ) Big money problems too. Rather large overdraft debt. Wrong place, wrong course, wrong head. Warnings from university management about my conduct, completely flunked out in Finals, and utterly infatuated with a girl who had made it quite clear she did not want to know. That was crushing. The feeling of isolation, exclusion and being locked out during those final weeks at uni was heavy and suffocating. Every time I saw The Girl, she'd turn her head away and blank me - on a site that small, this was inevitable and from her point of view it was probably very understandable, but it didn't make me feel good at all. self-esteem crushed. Feeling like a leper. Trying to cling to a religion i didn't beleive in any more, and wan't really living the values of, to see if this made any sense.
Remembering that there was a sense of pain and hurt and disbelief and utter regret that something that had started so well for me had ended so badly and horribly. This surfaces in dreams too. Grief.
Got somewhere to stay after leaving residences; and didn't bother attending graduation ceremony - no point - and got my degree, such as it was, in the post. Because of family problems it was not possible to move north again back to Manchester, nowhere to go to - got some basic level work in various places, kept up an association with the university even though I was no longer a student. Several things woke me up. I remember the Dean of Students, who'd warned me about bad behaviour, spotted me on the campus. He gave me a long thoughtful look; nothing was said by him then, but within a couple of days I got it through intermediaries that it might be a good idea if I moved on. (The easy way? Gentle hint?) I also realised in a moment of sanity that I was regularly going into the central coffee shop at UEA because it was cheap, yes. Making a coffee and a newspaper last a long time and watching the campus streets outside for glimpses of Her. If She came into the coffeeshop I'd feel - well, desire and despair and know this was as close as I was likely to get. I even saw Her in the streets in Norwich. (well. small city) Never directly approached or tried speaking to her as I knew there'd be no point and things might suddenly become a lot worse. But... Realised even then it was an insane situation to be in, working for peanuts just to be near a girl who didn't want to know and clinging on to something that had ended badly, and should by rights be over. Took a deep breath, got a job in a different place that came with accomodation, left Norwich before it got really out of hand, said my last goodbye to university. (It hadn't been hard to figure out, and I'm relieved that in 1989 the word "stalking" had not really been coined - brand new "thing" with no vocabulary, and nobody had joined the dots, or made it an arrestable crime. Reflecting that if all this were happening today, it might not have gone on undetected and unchallenged for months, there'd have been earlier intervention of some kind! .... I was pursuing that poor girl and stalking her on the UEA campus, and I owe her one massive apology for that. Moment of clarity - I realised the least worst outcome and the only way to cure it was to put myself where she wasn't. one of us had to leave town, and she had more of a right to be there than me. Simple as that, though it hurt. Glad I had the clarity of mind to see that and the strength to follow through; she could get on with her life uninterrupted and I could fix myself. ) . Spent the next decade putting myself right, and didn't go back to Norwich till around 2005. Where I revisited old haunts and had a moment of Stephen Fry melancholy - Fry recalls going back to Cambridge long after graduating, and feeling like he was walking round an empty film set, with the cast and crew he'd been a part of long since disbanded. Same for me in Norwich. Most of the sets were there - the actors and actresses were not. Met nobody I recognised or who recognised me. Blissful anonymity.
As I say, found the Fifers Lane ex-residents site on Facebook, lurked there for a few months whilst plucking up the courage to post in a place where I wasn't sure how well I'd be welcomed, started posting a day or two ago, had some positive feedback, which is good; I've been upfront on the mental illness part, but stressed that's not what defines me now, "and I'm saying it this once, to get it out of the way". The person I describe here as "The Girl" is a member, as is somebody who, if I read between the lines, was very close to her at uni. Saw them together a few times and they appeared physically close. Interestingly enough, earlier tonight her presumed ex "liked" one of my postings and a comment - then a little later seemed (perhaps) to realise my name was on them and withdrew both likes. Small thing, but makes me go "hmmm. Maybe I am remembered." Shame, as I have no animosity at all for him; he seems a really decent bloke. As for "The Girl" - took a breath, clicked through a couple of links, and looked at pictures of her as she is now. Which was a big step. Recognisably the same person, she's aged well, but for me, there is absolutely none of that longing or intensity of desire. Nothing left, except maybe a tiny wistful regret. She's just somebody who was around a long time ago and affected me then, but that was in 1988. I'm in no hurry to click the "add friends" button, and I guess neither is she... we can just tacitly ignore each other, and be adult about this. I hope.
So there you have it, a brief summation of most of the shit that came down for me in 87-88-89 and why I'm treading carefully in reconciling myself to it - serious emotional intensity, a lot of it went on... no wonder dreams are intense!