"This isn't real, you know what it is? It's St. Elmo's Fire. Electric flashes of light which would appear in dark skies out of nowhere. Sailors were guided entire journeys by it. But the joke was on them, there was no fire. There wasn't even a St. Elmo. They made it up. They made it up because they thought that they needed it to keep them going when things got tough, just like you're making all this up. We're all going through this, it's our time on the edge."- Rob Lowe, St. Elmos Fire. (1985)
We've all been there, right? The sudden feeling that don't belong. A feeling of others taking your place. A feeling that all of a sudden, you are old.

This is something which I am currently very in touch with. 

I first noticed this in the summer of 2015, myself and my friends from college went back there to watch a performance by the class who were in their second year. It all got a bit strange, partly because only half of them knew us. All of a sudden we were being treated as though we were members of the public, we had no privileges like we did the year before. We then went to the nightclub, which we attended every week and no-one was there who we knew, the layout was different, the music was different. We all felt a bit awkward and out of place.

I like to call this the "St. Elmo's" effect. I don't know if anyone has ever seen the 80s film St Elmo's Fire (which if you haven't I highly suggest you do because it is the best film ever to have been created) then this is where I got the idea from. It's a film about a group of friends who, to say the lease, are struggling to come to terms with leaving their college lives and how they're trying to cope with keeping jobs, friendships and relationship. There's a scene in the film where two of the friends from the group peer in the window of the Bar - St Elmo's Bar - to see their friend on the table which they would always sit at with all his new work friends. They then discuss how they thought they were going to be friends forever, and how forever got a lot shorter. It's not a film to watch if you're on the edge.
I've reached the point now, where when I go home from uni, to the pub, where I'd drink every week and not recognise anyone in there. Not even the staff. This is when my dad asked me "Are you feeling a bit, St. Elmo's? and you know what? That's exactly what it is. I guess I'm feeling it now more than ever because I left school 6 years ago which wasn't really a bother for me because I only had about 3 people to stay in touch with. But then I left college, and went to uni and all of a sudden when we came back - everything had changed. We couldn't meet up in our usual spots because someone else had taken them. We couldn't go to places where we would always go because we felt so out of place. I dread to think how much I'll be hit by the St. Elmo's effect once I leave uni.
Though, there is only one way to beat the St. Elmo's effect - find somewhere new. A new joint. We are yet to find a new joint, I suppose it's hard when you're rarely home...
So if you're ever feeling as though you're living in a past in a world that's quickly moving forward, then just remember, this is your St. Elmo's moment. It's your time on the edge. We're all going through this.

Before things got all uncomfortable...

xoxo