Missing everything and nothing all at once
I remember a conversation I had with my parents on approximately my 15th birthday. They asked me if I wanted to live on my own yet, to which I responded with an emphatic "no". They cautioned me to not be so confident in this answer.
On the day of packing before college move in, their warning had already soundly proved itself. Like clockwork, from the day after that conversation, I butted heads with them more and more.
The day before move-in, I woke up unexpectedly in the middle of the night. My nose was stuffy, but another feeling crept over me. The excitement over moving out disappeared. I laid in reverie, somehow realizing only now that my simple life at home was about to come to an end.
The next morning after move-in, I walked into the dining hall for breakfast with a strange feeling. Amongst the sea of people, I had the expectation that I would run into many familiar faces. I could easily reason that such was impossible, but my feelings disagreed.
In high school I became used to drifting through school events, trying to identify people I knew. In four years I actually got to know a lot of people, so my searches eventually became quite short. But all of a sudden, I couldn't do that anymore. My failed searches all screamed to me that everybody was new, and I was nobody to them.
I have an uncrushable anxiety for large events. I feel horrible being alone in one. I've tried to rationalize with myself; That people probably don't care that I'm alone, and some that do probably feel empathetic. But I don't listen to myself and I feel horrible just cause. I desperately walk around, doing stupid things to appear occupied. Like walking back to the utensils station with my food to grab a second or third fork, trying to postpone the arduous task of finding someone to eat with.
During one of the breakfasts, one person came up to me and just started introducing himself. I don't know, how does one overcome the fear of doing that? It turned out that he and everyone else around me were in the same dorm, different from mine. I was the odd one out. But by luck, or by his orchestration, we somehow got lost from the larger group. Eventually we found a place to sit down eat breakfast together. At once, I was at ease. We shared some great conversations about all sorts of things. At that point, I don't think I've kept many natural conversations for so long.
But to me he was only a gem in a pile of dirt. For the next few days of the orientation week, any time I was idle, I would catch myself thinking about myself and my place.
I have no home. Even in my hometown, I had no real home. The house is my parents'. And I had well, maybe one friend that would look back at me as their first choice as well. Throwing off the veil of going to college soon, I really just spent my summer all by myself, looking for ways to bide my time and stave off the loneliness.
And my situation at college so far was no different. Alone again, with a roommate I rarely talked to. I felt behind already, watching friend groups materialize before I even got to know the people next door.
I came from nothing, but I somehow still wished I stayed. I miss the past, but would still never return given the perspective I have now. I was pretty worried about how I was feeling. I craved being noticed and needed, and whatever pittances of these I had in high school burned to the ground when I came to college.
But like in the literary cliche, things started turning around. I seriously never expected it to. I always thought my university had a reputation for being antisocial. Well, I was about to be surprised.
It started with my dorm. My college has a bunch of residential housing communities that compete with each other in various events during the first week. I found out that I had the luck of being in probably the most spirited dorm of all campus, and furthermore, of living on the most spirited floor within that dorm.
My floor really came together when some of the CS majors figured out an exploit in one of the housing competition apps. It gave us an almost comical advantage, until some organizers realized what was going on and reset us. But this event united us. The day after, we banded together into a group in order to claw back the achievements we faked with the exploit, this time in a legitimate way.
It's interesting how the best way to unite people is to divide them and pit them against the other groups. The people in my dorm floor who I see often still mostly remain strangers. But now, they are strangers I feel included with. We've shared experiences beyond surface level things like being at the same dorm or school. Those are just labels. We shared feelings, of competition, pride, and joy.
In the past few days I've been getting over my fear of being alone. It seems like a pretty subtle difference between high school and college is that, in college, everyone's schedule is so unique, it's expected that you eat and study alone at many times. My internalized stigma of being alone is falling apart because of this and I'm grateful.
I was just out with some friends exploring the area surrounding campus. We joined a club sport together as well. Shamefully, I admit those are things I never did in high school. I had friends I could talk in class with, but beyond that, really nobody.
I'm also finding it easier to talk to people. Actually, I don't even realize I'm having a conversation sometimes. It's just become something I do by nature.
Somehow, I'm already finding my people here. I never actually did that in high school. Somehow, somehow, something or someone is smiling upon me. Against all my previous expectations... I actually kinda like it here.