The email arrived on a Thursday afternoon. No fanfare, just a subject line that said Congratulations. For a minute I didn’t open it. I already knew what it was, and I wanted to stay in that quiet space before the next thing started.
Everyone talks about the work it takes to get the scholarship, but not much about what happens after. When the forms stop. When you land in a new city, unpack your bag, and realise there’s no plan past this point.
One of the students I met last summer now lives down the coast. She studies online and works nights in a hotel kitchen. She told me she still looks at houses for sale in Xabia sometimes, scrolling through pages of homes she knows she can’t afford. She laughed when she said it. “It keeps me moving,” she told me. “If I can imagine the door, maybe one day I’ll knock on it.”
Most people don’t need much to keep going. Just a small image of something steady. A chair that’s always there. A corner where no one asks questions.
The scholarship doesn’t end with the email. It just changes shape. You learn to fill in different kinds of forms, deal with new offices, find ways to stay busy. You make friends who come and go. You start to see what parts of your life might hold.
If you’re in that stage, it’s normal to feel lost. Write down the next three small things you can do. Buy food. Call someone. Check one document. Do them, then stop for the day. That’s the rhythm that works for most people I’ve met.
When you look back, you’ll see it’s not the big steps that mattered. It’s the small, ordinary ones that kept you in motion.