I thought the world was going to end when I was twelve.
Before COVID, I had a small friend group. By the time we were shoved back into classrooms, those relationships dissolved into read receipts and unreturned texts. I felt like I had been drowning in jealousy and spite.
It was so easy to curl into a ball on my bed, relentlessly scrolling through TikTok posts made without me. It looked like everyone was able to push forward while I had been left behind. I felt so angry, so frustrated at the world. Why them? I’d ask myself. Why do they get to be happy while I sit here alone?
Being back in school full time was rough. I had one person I could actually talk to without being judged.
When she was there, I was able to feel a sense of normalcy. When she was not, I felt the loneliness creep into my bones. In the cafeteria, I couldn’t bring myself to sit alone. I sat by her mutual friends quietly while I heard their banter around me. The talk of group chats I wasn’t in and inside jokes I didn’t understand rang through my ears.
I convinced myself it was all my own doing. I would go into my room and hate everything about myself. I hated the way I looked. I hated my face, my hair, my clothes, and the awkward cadence of my voice whenever I spoke. I fell into a depression, convinced that being dropped was proof that I was fundamentally flawed. I believed that because five kids at the lunch table couldn’t be bothered to say hello, my life was over before it had even started.
I wish I could go back in time and tell that girl a few things:
Middle school is an echo chamber of insecure people. Those who ignored you were never the judges of your self-worth.
Your bedroom walls are not the edge of the earth. When you’re twelve, you feel like that middle school and your bedroom feel like the whole universe. You believed that since you weren’t wanted in that tiny radius, you weren’t wanted anywhere.
I share this story not because I have magically unlocked the secrets to belonging. I’m a freshman in college now, and navigating loneliness is still something difficult I have to face. College seems like everybody around you has found their people during week two, and if you’re still alone, you’re just out of luck. It is so incredibly easy for these feelings of isolation to creep back into your life. The difference now is that I know better than to believe it.
I’m learning how to deal with these feelings rather than let them stay inside. I’m trying to figure out who I really am in this new world. Surviving that cafeteria taught me that those feelings of loneliness will pass. Just because a connection has not arrived in your life does not mean you are not worthy of feeling that love.
If you currently carry the sting of being left out or replaced, take a deep breath. Unclench your shoulders and take a step out of your room. The horizon out there is so much wider than you think it is, and there’s a space with your name on it.
