Denmark Diaries:Leaving York Behind

13/07/2025 - written on a paper bag during one of my final shifts at the sweet shop

No one tells you how hard it is to be the last one left in a university house. Especially not one you will soon be leaving behind to move to another country.

Term finished weeks ago now and slowly everyone’s moved on, left York and started their summer, ready to return in September. My last housemate left today. It was just us two for a few weeks and I grew very comfortable in our routine, joking about being an old married couple. Every night after work, we’d have tea and biscuits and watch Love Island on TV. This evening, I turned on the channel, boiled the kettle for one and it hit me: I am leaving this place. 

Final Days in York

Don’t get me wrong, I am beyond excited (albeit terrified) for this next year. Studying abroad was a challenge 18 year old me was determined to face, and 20 year old me is trying her hardest to fulfil. However, these past two years were a memory yet to be made in her world - some of the people closest to me now were still strangers, friendships I never even imagined to be mine. Leaving them behind to follow a younger dream of mine is so much harder than I ever thought.  

In the very first week of my first year at university, I found (rather like the cliché), friends for life. We started this journey together, made more memories than I can count and had a whole lot of fun doing it. In third year, they will all graduate and I’ll watch them complete this final chapter, still a few pages behind. 

I am already a hugely sentimental (perhaps overdramatic) person: I cried leaving my first year accommodation, the place where it all began. Despite having little attachment to many aspects of student living, I grew fond of that building, mainly of the people who made it worth coming back to. 

My second year home I chose for myself. It’s become a safe haven for me, filled with so much love, character and many stories I’ll be reminiscing about for life. My friends will still be here for another year, filling it with more memories, preserving all we have built and I can’t comprehend how much I’ll miss being a part of that. 

As I look around my room, I can’t help but think how, in a few days, I’ll be packing it all up, locking the front door for the final time and driving away.

It’s hard to be the last one left in a university house. It’s even harder to be the first one to leave a home.