The Freshman/Junior Dilemma

    Things are always easier at the start, aren’t they? As time goes on, you grow weary or just forget, or even purposely avoid whatever was once new. I’m beginning to realize that. 

    This statement has precedent, don’t worry. I was talking to one of my best friends. She graduated high school last year, so she is a college freshman right now. For reference, I am a high school junior, which means I met her when she was my age. That is one of those weird perspective things. 

    Anyways. I opened our group chat and noticed we hadn’t talked for a while so I struck up a conversation. Hi, how are you, the works. Instantly, she replied and began telling me stories of college. In fact, the conversation is still active as I am writing. 

    As I listened to her stories, I weirdly began to ache. She is falling in love. I’m not in love with her or anything, but this was hard for me to hear. When I noticed that her new experience hurt I wondered why and it hit me: I don’t fit into her world anymore. Or the worlds of any of my college-aged friends, really. Or honestly, many of my high-school-aged friends, either, 

    I am just having a hard time. The last time I was in school in a “normal” year like this, I was a freshman. At the time, I was going through the same thing in a different way. At the time, I had two different friend groups. One was my theatre friends who I only hung out with at rehearsal or after school. We mainly just texted. Then, I had my grade-level friends, and since we had a separate lunch, these were my pals for the year. I am still friends with these then-freshmen, with the exception of a few. And my college friends are all from theatre. 

    In both of these groups, I went through a weird phase. I had been pretty depressed, though I’m not sure why, and I just felt horrible around all my friends. I felt excluded and unwanted, and decided to make a change. Which I did. I am now alright when I’m alone. Which is why my current predicament confuses me now.

    I sit with people who I claim to love and care about, but every time I talk to them, I don’t feel like myself. This was another quarantine discovery, the true me. And she’s definitely still here, but it’s just not right around my friends. I feel weird. Even my voice is changing, the way I talk. When I’m at rehearsal now, I sit there and feel something in my chest. Not a heaviness, but maybe a hollowness would be a better way to put it. I just can’t connect to anyone. This, annoyingly, makes me not want to connect with anyone. Why try? It doesn’t even matter if I don’t feel it anymore, right? I know this is a horrible point of view. 

    Honestly, I can’t name one time this school year where a laugh or a joke felt truly, 100% genuine. And it makes me feel horrible. It’s not anyone’s fault, not even my own. Which makes it even harder to navigate. 

    So, when I talk to the people I care about and I realize they are moving on, and doing bigger things, it is…bittersweet. I’m happy for them, but sometimes I wish they would carve out a little me-shaped piece that I could slide into when I need it. To hold me firmly and let me remember what care feels like. I know it’s selfish. If they carve out this hole, then they’re left to feel how I do now. Like something just isn’t right. Don’t get me wrong, I probably wouldn’t slip into it. It’s the comfort of knowing I had the chance to.

    So, as I heard her endeavors of love, and I ached; I felt proud, but also, strange. Every time you have a friend like her, you know for sure you won’t drift. She is permanence in your life, an anchor of sunshine and joy. To hear her stories without having been there, without having known they were happening as I did my math homework or English reading, I felt unanchored. I was sent alone onto an unfamiliar shore. But, I am alright alone.

    I try not to be desperate anymore. If I’m not invited, what’s wishing I was there gonna do? But, sometimes that instant abandoned feeling quickly pricks you, and sends its essence through your body. That’s how I feel. It’s not her fault at all, in fact, she did the right thing. She moved beyond high school and is thriving in college. She is in love! She never abandoned me at all. She is right there. I just texted her! So why is it hard?

    For her and our mutual friend, I had felt the first genuine love feelings between friends that I’d had in a while, since probably middle school. My freshmen friends and I weren’t really talking, but she rubbed balm over that wound. She was there right when I needed her. Maybe I need her again. 

    Junior year, as I keep telling my freshmen (now junior) friends, feels like freshman year was put on pause and just now resumed. I may have been sewn up, but a wound doesn’t heal in a day. Or a year, sometimes. Or two. I do feel better, though. I am alright alone. I think, really, I sort of miss myself most of all. I’ve been completely swamped this year, and even writing this expression now, I feel slightly guilty for not doing my schoolwork. Like I said, I know who I am now. I also know what I enjoy, but I’m in a rut. I don’t have time to do anything, or I have time but I procrastinate, and never get to anything beneficial for my grades or for myself. 

    Maybe the issue isn’t that I don’t fit into anyone’s world anymore. Maybe it’s that I don’t fit into my own. I have become student, worker, actor. But outside of that, where am I? Where is my old tenacity? Or my old softness? Or the weight that lived in my cheeks? Or the sunshine that lived in my memories? It has been replaced by the hours of analyzing, solving, and evaluating, and I resent that. 

    I try to regain the warmth in others, but maybe I simply need a lunch to myself, a gross school lunch and a good book. Maybe I need to clear my head or throw away and burn the clocks surrounding me. Maybe I should crash my Chromebook and pretend that everything is ok. But then again, that’s already what I’m doing, just with eyes closed, or stolen moments, and a perfectly-intact Chromebook. 

    Maybe I need a good nap. No, I definitely do. Maybe I need some space. Maybe I need honey and my mom’s warm hugs. Maybe I just need silence and a few tears. Freshman year me would’ve wanted something similar.

    She wanted others desperately and lost herself in the process. And I have myself found, but didn’t remember to honor that without others. I’m a silly girl, aren’t I? Losing myself to others for no reason other than to feel more than the hole in my own self. But I completely failed to realize that the shape of this hole is familiar. It has the shoes I love and the books I devoured. It has my favorite earrings and Twix bars. It isn’t my friends’ sunshine, but my own, in a way. And that’s the kind I love the most. In simple pleasures; in love and content. 

    It’s outside of everything. It isn’t easy to remember I’m more than a body, and therefore require more than basic care. But I should remember that. Because the shape of the hole in my world fits me perfectly. Acknowledging that doesn’t mean I don’t care for anyone, it just means I require care too. I just need to step back into it, and remember that I am enough. 

    My tenacity remains, in the lines I forget and the countless late nights to finish a project. But maybe it should exist in a bigger realm than that; maybe it can just be hugging myself and trying to remember to not hate everything. My old softness is still here, in the clothes I wear and in the discovery of self-love (and simply in my writing and sentimentality). The weight in my cheeks is a little thinner, but that doesn’t mean my smile has changed. Even in the face of new teeth, the shape is familiar, with one side going up higher. My sunshine is in many things now. Things I can’t help but love; in the art I do, and the things I write, it’s right there in the moment. I just need to remember that to feel it I need to take those steps. 

    I know I don’t get much time to do it all, but maybe I need to let that be alright. Maybe I am more important than a grade and the rating systems that define me on paper. Maybe that’s why I had this trouble freshman year too.

    Because it’s easier to start than to follow through. Even with knowing and loving and caring for yourself.