Monday, September 7, I’m sitting on my doorstep waiting for my sister to put her school shoes on.

I was sitting in the warm breeze of a September morning, yet I was shaking. If I’d stayed up all night it would have made no difference to my exhaustion.

By the morning my bed sheets were in a knot and aside from a few fitful half hours of vivid dreams I didn’t sleep a wink.

My stomach shifts uneasily and I notice that the hands that I am hugging myself with are pinching into my skin.

I release my hands but then I can’t figure out what to do with them, so instead they clasp and unclasp each other as if in constant need of touch and reassurance.

But that didn’t last very long, as I walked to school it was all coming back to me and nothing felt unusual. It was as if I was going to school after a long weekend.

As I approach school, I along with other students arrive through the gates, hustling and bustling down the corridors.

Friends are greeting each other with a playful punch while newcomers stand looking scared. The seniors stand, tall and proud, confidence born of experience. Soon the bells rings, a sound that I have not heard in quite a while and everybody runs except an occasional slowcoach or chatterbox.

Though there were some hygiene procedures, everything was pretty much the same and made me realise there was no need to be so nervous.

It was just all about getting through that first hurdle (which was a challenge), but it did make me realise change is adaptable.