It feels like the older I get, the more afraid I am of moving on.
I often think about how the friends I've grown so close to will move on to their post-grad lives in a little over a year, while I’m still in college trying to finish my last few terms.
However, for two years, I spent a lot of my college experience not wanting to be here. I dreamed of living out of random hacker houses throughout the country, jumping from one conference to the next to fulfill my digital lifestyle dream. I felt like nothing I was studying was actually related or applicable to what I work on in tech. This manifested in treating college like a neglected side project. Something I had to get through for the sake of everyone but myself. Classes were on the backburner — I never did my readings and spent class time working on personal projects, internships, and talking to strangers from the Twitterverse.
I honestly didn’t even feel comfortable going back to my own room, much less dorm.
I was forced to live with random people after the implosion of my blocking group (this is what we call the group of people we decide to room with). These were my best friends who I had met during the first semester of freshman year — the same people who came over to my dorm over Thanksgiving & kept me company throughout the time I had to self-quarantine for covid. They had ghosted me during my gap and told me that two days before rooming assignment forms were due that they didn’t want to room with me anymore. They wanted to room with another group, the same friend group they left mine for.
A lot of similarly unfortunate events have happened to me throughout my time in college.
One of my friends, “S” recently asked me why this always seems to happen to me.
“It seems like you always have friendship drama, like out of everyone I know this probably happens to you the most.
I start to wonder if I’m the problem.
I probably am part of the problem. Everything that happens to us is still a direct or indirect consequence of our actions, right? But why me?
I wonder the same thing, I always felt like things just kind of happen to me. That I have no control over all the unfortunate circumstances I'm put in. I’m the one who’s left to pick up all the pieces afterward, to deal with the aftermath of the brazen storms that seem to always be in sight.
The people who leave never seem to have to deal with the repercussions of their actions or the hurt they have caused me.
My ex block mates found a new friend group and got to room with their best friends. I see them in the dining hall, constantly p-setting together. They love posting pictures all over Instagram, posting group dinner pictures so everyone knows they hung out. The person who got me dis-invited from my original spring break plans didn't even end up going on the trip because she ended up not wanting to. I actually wanted to go and couldn’t.
These situations left me with a deep bitterness.
I wonder if my entire college experience was just a reaction to this emotion. I took a gap semester after getting rejected by all the pre-professional clubs my first semester because I wanted to prove myself professionally. I posted pictures publicly from every one of my hangouts so everyone would know that I’m okay. These were all reactive, none of it came from me.
I’ve tried so much over the past year to let go of this resentment — it slowly unraveled.
I’ve let go of my hatred for pre-professional clubs. I no longer knew or even cared to know when their membership applications were due. Of course, I’m reminded of it every time a new semester starts and they start spamming all the mailing lists with the dates of their info sessions. But I think after a certain point; I just stopped caring. I just don’t open those emails anymore. I’ve unsubscribed. And when people bring up what they're doing in these clubs, I just respond with a “cool” and move on to asking them about more interesting things.
I’ve let go of my fixation on being so focused on my “career.”
On friendships. I’m still working on it. When I see people from my past walk by me in Eliot, I still feel a bit uneasy sometimes. I avoid their gaze, and they do the same. Through all the work I’ve done within, I’ve acknowledged their wrongdoings and how they really did hurt me. I don’t think I will ever get the closure I desire. But I’ve accepted that.
When I trace how I have moved on, it’s always come down to finding something else that I care about that all I can and want to focus on is the present. The past starts mattering less and less, and it almost feels like a distant thought making waves for what’s to come.
I believe I have found that something now.
I have incredible friends, mentors, and communities around me who actually look for me, care for me and check-in. They show this in their own way. Some send me tiktoks that remind them of me, spontaneously call to check in, shift their priorities around to make time for our hangouts, have monthly catch-ups over zoom, and even bring handwritten comments about my substack posts to our once-a-semester catch-up dinners.
It is difficult to express just how much I appreciate them and how appreciated I feel. I find it difficult to verbalize my feelings even though I feel them so strongly, that’s why it’s hard for me to say “I love you” back or tell people “I miss them.”
I think this is why I am hesitant to move on from college because Eliot has finally become home. Harvard in extension has too.
It’s now a place I want to return to at the end of each day, rather than somewhere I have to be. There are people I want to see now, people that I actively look out for and try to catch their attention. Even if sometimes, all I see of them is the quick brunch we fit in that’s all that matters.
Slowly but surely, they make me feel like I can move on from my past because I don’t want to let go of them now.
I recently went to Taiyaki NYC & tried to Matcha latte & now I am obsessed. It’s the best matcha I’ve had in a while & the mochi donuts are really good (especially strawberry cheesecake). I’ve been going here way too often lately ahh.
“it used to be fun to care. but now everything I do feels like punching air. I can punch harder, but i’ll only get tired faster. and i’m tired.”
Katie (s/o if you see this): from our catch-up this week “just go study abroad in Korea”
idk if I will go but this helped me realize I was avoiding things that made me uncomfortable. I don’t think a lot of my fears are unfounded — they are very real things to consider but also I think I could definitely use a healthy does of “fuck it energy”
“I think the characteristics you envy in others are the ones you’ve renounced in yourself.”
I envy conviction. I envy people who are unabashedly themselves even though people would say the same about me.
What I’m pondering:
this quote from the peabody essex museum:
I don’t know exactly what I want in the future. I only know the direction. However, I’d give up almost anything if it meant I can realize this future & that the steps actually manifest.
this weeks post is for subscribers only, mainly because a lot of my good friends are subscribed to this & I really want them to read this. but also, because I’ve been struggling with only posting “reflective” and “vulnerable” content for the entire internet to see. I love reflecting and writing these stories, but at the same time I’m a lot more than that. If you enjoyed reading this, send me a message! (: I would love to hear your thoughts.
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