My time in Groningen
I struggled, survived, and thrived
Door Veronika Bajnokova
By Veronika Bajnokova
Veronika Bajnokova
I lived in Groningen for five years. And the thought of those five years and what I’m leaving behind made me feel, to be honest, depressed. The thought that once I pack my bags and board the plane, it’s over. I’ll be gone, and there will be nothing left of me.
I always pictured myself leaving this place with a soulmate. I came here with a partner who I thought I’d be with forever. But now he is a she and I might never fall in love again. In this city,all the men I’ve met turned out to be dogs. Even the fetishist who wanted to buy my used stockings ended up ghosting me.
But maybe I’m not a great example – I have friends who have fallen in love in Groningen and who managed to escape this town where everyone knows your ex. And maybe, but only maybe, I was the problem in the first place, calling all men dogs.
While I wasn’t successful in dating, whether it be men or women or anyone in between or outside of it, I have built friendships that I’ll still be talking about when I’m on my deathbed. And if there’s anything left of me in Groningen, it can be found in those friendships.
Pieces of myself
I have left a little piece of myself in almost every student room I visited. I have left plants and pots with almost every friend I have. And I’d like to imagine that the cuttings from these plants were gifted in turn to their friends, extending the act of nurture from me and stretching across an entire web of friendships. A little garden of mine in Groningen.
On second thought, knowing my friends, the plants might well be dead by now. But one thing I learned during those five years at the uni, it’s that I’d rather choose to live in delusion. At least in my mind, my plants are still thriving.
People who knew me in Groningen might tell you ‘She used to study here but she’s left’. But that’s not really true. Some parts of me are still around, as subtle reminders of my spirit. Who knows in which stranger a little fragment of me might be hiding?
Some parts of me are still around, as subtle reminders
Some of them might be wearing my clothes. Maybe a friend of mine will pass by you wearing my skirt. Or you’ll buy one of my shirts at a fundraiser in the squat where I used to hang out. I loved my clothes. But with my days In Groningen being over, it felt almost ritualistic to give them away and purge my past versions.
Maybe part of what I leave behind are also the conversations that still linger with my friends. Some of them might be sour, hopefully only a few. It could be another sign of my delusions, but I like to think that the late-night talks, shared meals, and drunken poems I recited helped make their lives here a little more bearable too.
And if it wasn’t the poems that stayed with them, I’m pretty sure they will never forget about the nights we acted out my break-up texts over a glass of wine. Assigned roles, theatrics, and tears – from laughter rather than a broken heart.
Mid-twenties crisis
I came here with high-school friends who once thought like me. Now we can’t stop fighting about nihilism and whether having a job is even ethical. We always knew the engineer would make more than the journalist, but no one prepares you for losing the friend who became the engineer just because you became the journalist.
At one point, I felt like I had made all the wrong decisions; I enrolled in the wrong studies because I chose the wrong profession and somehow I’m dating only the wrong people for me. My classmate told me she was surprised I wanted to give up on journalism since I seemed to be one of the few who ‘actually cared’.
It felt like I had made all the wrong decisions
The tipping point at which I became absolutely disillusioned with the idea of ever having a successful career was witnessing the global failure of elite journalists to report on the ongoing Gaza genocide. Suddenly, I no longer had ambitions to join a globally renowned newsroom or to collect awards for groundbreaking investigative reporting.
Even now, I may still not know what I’m going to do about my career, but I know one day everything will align and make perfect sense. I’ve decided to trust that, in due time, all the lessons I collected on the way will help me practice the type of journalism I will be proud of without having to betray myself.
Lessons learned
Packing my life into a suitcase made it seem like I have so little to treasure from the years here. But really, I’m leaving with a whole moving truck of lessons. I’ve learned how to bike in heels, smoke cigarettes without filters, and that I was right about everything when I was 13.
The university doesn’t always apply its lessons itself
My two degrees from the UG may no longer appeal to me as a viable option for a wonderful career, but I still gained invaluable knowledge that I’ll treasure for the rest of my life. In my intersectionality class, I learned about the university’s hypocrisy firsthand when we acted as if the students protesting in the Harmonie square encampment were not our concern.
Although this institution trained me to think critically and learn from history, it became clear that it doesn’t always apply those lessons itself. When students protested in solidarity with Gaza, the university called the police on them, only for the next day to send out mass emails inviting students to join protests against budget cuts. From this, I learned that protest is not a festival.
End of an era
When I was almost done with my internship, I bumped into an old professor of mine on the street. He said I’d be better off working as a journalist than pursuing academia, since ‘those people at the top only care about their prestigious name and cocktail parties’.
It was reassuring, almost freeing, to hear a man who’d spent his entire life building a career say he wanted to quit everything and start a band. I guess those feelings never really go away. Makes me think I might as well just start the band now.
In a way, finishing uni feels like my life has ended before it even began. There is a certain truth to such a paradox. This is the end of an era; it is the death of Veronika as a university student. But the rest of my life is just beginning, and it can only be born out of what I have finished here.
If you happen to bike on the Noordzeebrug at night – the big bridge that takes you out of Groningen – you might hear the echoes of my screams from when I was on the verge of losing my mind. That echo is part of what I left behind. Please, join me in screaming anytime Groningen makes you feel like you’ve had enough too.