To my Flat 17 gals, this is my post for you.

Thank you for changing my life. When I arrived in the city, I didn’t know who I was, only the person I wanted to be. And you helped me find her.

Everything has changed, yet I’m supposed to pretend as if my life is somehow the same. On Monday, I said goodbye to Flat 17 and the majority of the people within it. In an instant, the best year of my life was over, and I didn’t know how to feel. In many ways, I knew eleven and a half months was never going to be long enough. I just never expected to find friends for life in our little student accommodation home. So, here it is…the final chapter in my Edinburgh journey…my post for Flat 17.

I arrived on September 7th 2019, unsure of whether I would ever make it through the year. I left August 24th 2020, certain that I wanted to turn back time to that first day. To outsiders, Flat 17 was a lucky coincidence. But it never felt as frivolous as luck and timing to us. It was always more. It wasn’t an algorithm. It was meant to be.

From the Bahamas to India, the UK to the US, we started off as seven women from different parts of the world. As the year passed by, we acquired honorary flatmates, and Flat 17 became not only a home, but a community we all came to know and love. It was a safe space, one where we could heal and grow and become the empowered women we’d always wanted to be. And it was something we never took for granted. We knew, just as we didn’t want to accept, that our time there would be fleeting. And then came 2020…

In hindsight, there are so many things I wish I’d done…so many pictures I wish I’d taken, and so many more memories that should have been noted down. But my year in Flat 17 freed me from a mindset that had been holding me back, and I see little point in living with regrets or clinging on to the past. Sometimes, when nothing but grey clouds follow a storm, it’s hard to see the sky clearly. But eventually, when everything is said and done, you will see blue again. For the bad days will always pass, and good people will help guide you through the fog.

So, to the moments in time that we’ll forever wish to return to, may we remember them fondly despite our inability to go back. It’s okay to want to rewind the clock, but to spend all your time wanting to do so is to get trapped in the past. And, I for one, am ready to move forward.

Until next time,

Melis x

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