september 15, day 16
It’s been a few days since I’ve written on here, but I’ve been really busy.
Over the weekend I returned home and stayed for a few nights. I got back late Sunday afternoon. It was nice being home and seeing my parents, my brother, my grandparents, my aunt, and my best friend. It was especially nice to see my cats—I’ve missed them the most.
But I noticed something while I was back home, and I haven’t been feeling right since. To go back a little bit, I am still struggling to feel comfortable at college. I’m assuming it’s because this is a “new chapter in my life” (as everyone keeps telling me, even when I’m not asking), and because I’m in a situation I’ve never been in before. But even so, it just doesn’t feel right. It feels like everyone else is making friends, doing things, leaving campus or exploring campus, getting involved, participating in activities—and I barley leave my room every day. I do not have a roommate, I do not have any friends, I am too nervous to participate in activities that involve other people. I desperately want to go out and make friends and be around people, but it’s too overwhelming and nerve-wracking. To get to the point, I do not feel like I belong here. I feel out of place and just wrong.
But when I went home for the weekend (Thursday afternoon to Sunday evening), I felt extremely uncomfortable. First, I felt guilty, and like I was doing something wrong—to be honest, I’m not completely sure if I was even allowed to leave campus with COVID-19. (I was told it was okay to leave campus after we got our testing done, but nobody can give me a straight answer on anything: everyone I ask questions gives me contradicting information.) On top of that, the environment of home just felt different. I guess the best way to describe it would be: In these few weeks, my family had already become comfortable and in a routine of surviving without me. Their lives had changed because I was not there, but they were growing accustomed to it. Me, on the other hand? I adapted really well to the new environment of college—but I don’t feel like I belong here, like I said. I also feel like I don’t belong at home.
This realization really had an impact on me. It made me wonder, Will I ever feel comfortable and like I belong anywhere? I can’t feel it at home anymore, I can’t feel it at school. I’ve spent nearly nineteen years of my life isolated, sheltered, even (by my own doing). My entire life I spent this way. I never spent much time with friends, and I was always around my parents. Now I feel like I’ve been thrusted into a world of being on your own, a world where I do not belong.
Mentally and emotionally, I feel so much better when I’m on my own. This I’ve always known about myself. But now I lack a sense of home. My house doesn’t feel like home anymore, and neither does college (not even my room). I’m so used to being with my family—will I ever feel at home again, when I’m not with them? And hypothetically, if I were to live with them again, I can’t picture it being the same, either—because there was a chunk of time when it was different (that time being now).
In a way, it is reminiscent of my feelings toward COVID-19. I can’t remember what it was like before, I can’t remember a time when it was different. I can’t imagine it being any different. I also can’t picture things ever going back to normal.
I feel stuck and hopeless. I feel uncertain of the future, and it makes me anxious. I never pictured myself making it to college, and because of that I didn’t prepare myself for it (mentally or physically). Now I am here and I feel anxious, tense, and uncertain all the time. I wasted years not thinking about this. And because I didn’t picture myself making it college, I now feel like I am living in a constant state of high-intensity anxiety because everything feels uncertain, and the future feels hopeless.