The Lies We Live

something new

This is a new place and I will become a new person because of it. I already feel the loneliness set in. I was different in high school because I knew everyone and everything about them. I had found my place in that social scene, and now I must find myself in this one. 

It is hard to be myself when there is no one to tell me who that is. I can't help but look around and feel the panic set in. I don't have as many friends as I used to. And I realize now that the real world asks you to take time out of your life for these people. They have gone from being constants to variables.

I will see them on good days and endure the bad days in solitude. My parents tell me that their university lives were somewhat the same and I am not thrilled by this revelation. I am not the girl who sits at empty tables writing about her sad life; I am the girl who excites others, who laughs and smiles, that girl never felt out of place. 

An older and much wiser friend tells me that loneliness is such a common part of life, and I try to accept the fact that nothing will ever be the same again. I don't want to make new friends when I find myself struggling to feel comfortable with their presence. I can't remember the last time I felt like this. 

Like how do people get together and study in groups? I sit in a corner and stare at them in awe. The idea that they made time for each other, willingly is unbeknownst to me in this new world. There are over 35,000 students here, and perhaps out of that, 5000 in my faculty. How will they ever resemble my high school cohorts?

I think the point is that nothing I have from now on will ever be like high school. There will be less familiar faces, and even fewer people to talk to. I remember sitting on the bus talking to this girl I used to take calculus with, and she said that none of our teachers would ever forget me. I was memorable and special. People knew me because I put myself out there.

Now, I won't speak up in lectures, there are 300 people in there scrutinizing me for f*cks sake. I won't introduce myself after class because I know they will either forget or not care. I'm scared to speak with the people beside me because I'm afraid I will embarrass myself and they will hate me forever. And if that doesn't happen, then they will forget me within the hour. I want to be myself again, but I'm afraid this new place will not tolerate that person. 

I see old classmates, and I think some of them may be facing the same thing. They walk in pairs or groups, they are the remnants of high school in post-secondary education. It is easy to feel like nothing when no one even knows who you are.

My older friends tell me that this will pass, and I will be fine. I will meet people in group projects and in class. They say I need to give it time. But I also see classmates that have made new friends in an instant. How easy it is for them to nestle themselves between strangers. I can not let myself feel comfort, only ever after knowing them for an extremely long time.

I find myself sitting alone once again. Kind of like the eighth grade when I walked into the caf for the first time and had no idea where to sit when I had no friends. But I had one person, and she did her best to help. But it was me who found the guts to be myself in front of others back then.

I need to find it in myself to do that now.