Who am I

Dedicated to my younger self and anyone who is struggling with loneliness and/or life changes.

I’m surrounded by thousands of people, but they all feel like strangers. I know many people’s names but at the same time I don’t really know anyone, and no one knows me. I write this in my journal, as I notice little wet circles dampen the page. It takes me a moment to realize I am crying. 

I’m not myself.

I look up through my tear-drop blurred vision at the cinderblock wall of the dorm I’ve been assigned. I stare at the wall as the white blocks fade into a blur, and I sit still. I reminisce on the days when the sun would shine through my bedroom window and tempt me to wake up, as my mom slowly opened the curtains. Pulling back the white cloth, she’d let in the beginning of a new day. A new day that was also the same day I’d lived many times before. I would wake up, stumble to my bathroom, get dressed, pack my bag, and rush out the door for school. I was surrounded by my friends I’ve known since childhood and teachers who had watched me grow up. I had a small community that felt familial. 

If I could go back in time, I would embrace the ease of each day I once took for granted. I would drive down the same busy road to school where I used to anxiously stress about running late with a newfound happiness to be sitting in traffic. I would wear the same uniform as all my classmates with pride instead of annoyance.

Life was consistent and I thrived under the stability.

One day I was told to put on a white dress and a cap and gown. I walked nervously in front of hundreds of people to collect a piece of paper and shake an old man’s hand. I blinked and my beloved life as I knew it was gone.

***

A few weeks ago, I said goodbye to my closest friends and goodbye to the two people who I’ve spent every day with since birth, my parents. I cry. They cry. Everyone seems to move on. But I can’t.

That’s what is strangest to me about college, you’re told to be excited about the opportunity for new friends, the education, the parties, and the freedom, but all I feel is forced to let go of the life I love. A life that is all I have known for 18 years. 

I’m not myself.

***

My parents drop me off at the airport, and I walk through the narrow plane door. I take my last breath of the comforting New Jersey air and say goodbye. Despite only traveling one hour to North Carolina, this is a goodbye I’m not ready for.  

***

I arrived on campus one week ago, a campus I’d been to many times before. I’m surrounded by more people than ever, but somehow, I am the loneliest I’ve ever felt.

I slowly begin to realize the support of my family and friends is akin to metal beams holding up a home. And now, in this new life, I feel my beams are slipping. My home friends are making new friends and my family lives at home without me. I watch my life, the life I didn’t want to leave, fall to pieces. The people closest to me survive without me but I cannot without them.

I wake up in the morning struggling to face each day alone. It’s Tuesday and I walk to class with two girls who live in my dorm. We walk through campus beneath the green trees and busy streets full of life. I’m surrounded by liveliness and desperate for connection, but something within holds me back. Anxiety. Insecurity. I listen to the girls talk about the weekend and the party I didn’t know was happening. I feel left out but I also cannot bring myself to try to fit in. I sit down in class with the same two girls and watch them form a friendship I know I will not be part of. They seem to forget I’m even there due to my silence. I’m struggling because I don’t know how to be myself with strangers who are pretending to be best friends.

I pick up my phone and mindlessly scroll through Instagram. I’m suddenly flooded with jealousy and sadness. I scroll through post after post, and tap through story after story, of everyone flaunting their fun, carefree college life. I ache for that lifestyle but I’m unable to create it for myself. I lock my phone and place it face down.

It’s Friday night and I’m staring at the cinder block walls again. This time, I’m done crying. Instead, I’m playing music, sitting at my desk in front of my magnified mirror darkening my eyelashes and pinkening my cheeks. I decided earlier tonight I need to put myself out there. As I’m picking out an outfit, I call my mom and dad as my mind was consumed with thoughts of avoidance. “It’ll be good for you to get out” my mom and dad tell me on the phone. I feel ashamed. I’m a college freshman whose parents are pleading for her to go out. I used to be a social butterfly, but I’ve gone through reverse metamorphosis and turned into a caterpillar stuck inside her own shell of self-doubt.

I’m not myself.

I listen to my parents and attend a pre-game hosted in the dorm next to mine. I stand in a small shoebox posing for photos, making drinks, and talking with new “friends.” I try so hard to be myself, but I just feel empty. It’s as if someone took the girl who I used to be a few months ago, hollowed her out, and filled her with the sadness she was lucky enough to avoid her whole life. 

I watch everyone else feel so at ease and not scared to embrace the new chapter ahead. I feel confused. No one knows each other. We all just arrived a few days ago. How is she already your best friend? How is he already your boyfriend? I think this as I hear these people who I call my friends gush about their new social lives. These same thoughts creep up on me when I go through social media before bed that night. I realized the fakeness of social media. Two girls posted with the caption “I’ve found my other half”, but I watched them barely acknowledge each other when they went out. I don’t know if that makes me feel better or worse. I’m just further confused.

Following my efforts to make friends, I’m placed in group chats with people I’m supposed to be excited to meet and invited to pre-games, brunches, and dinners I’m supposed to want to attend. I feel relieved I am accepted, but I don’t feel excited. I feel grief. All I do is mourn the past. 

What if I don’t want to move on? I think to myself as I walk head down, air pods in, from my dorm to the library. It slowly dawns on me that I have no choice. I withdraw myself from everyone and everything associated with college, as I place the blame of my life changing on the university. The more I withdraw, the more I see other people create lives for themselves in this new home. 

I’m not myself.

I have yet to realize life is full of changes and blaming a person or place for my unhappiness will not remove me from the situation or depression.

***

It’s November and I’ve just returned from Thanksgiving break. I listened to stories where all my home friends formed amazing college friendships and memories already. I had nothing to share. I board the plane back to North Carolina crying. I begged my parents to let me stay home but they said I need to try and adjust to college. I’ve always been outgoing and happy, they have no doubt I'll be that person here. I tell them they’re wrong. 

I’m not myself.

***

Four years go by, and I’ve been able to make friends and assimilate into the college culture. I finally feel comfortable here. As graduation day approaches, my friends and I walk around recounting our lives at school that are being stripped away, as we are forced to move on once again. Never again will I roam campus with the same group of friends, go to the same bar and stumble home at 2 am, or stay up all night studying in the library.

I am told to put on a white dress and a cap and gown to nervously walk in front of hundreds of people to receive a piece of paper. 

Poof. My college life as I knew it is gone before I could take it all in.

After a weekend of celebrating, I pack up everything I own into boxes and leave the new home I’ve created in North Carolina to move to New York. 

I decided I hate change. 

Despite my hatred I have no choice. I must move forward and on with my life. 

I realized life is a never-ending cycle of moving on - from school, from friendships, from relationships, from locations. As I got out of the Uber at the Raleigh-Durham airport, I realized the key to happiness is not evading change but embracing life’s obstacles head-on. Life’s only constant is that there will be changes, so to go through life with a mind stuck in the past, I will never be able to enjoy the present. 

I exit at my Uber from JFK to midtown. I’m surrounded by thousands of people, but they all feel like strangers. I don’t really know anyone, and no one really knows me. Except this time, I know myself. 

Finally, I am myself.