“Do you want to hang out with us today?”
Oh, no.
I knew this question was coming,
it comes every day, and yet when it does, I’m still shocked.
I don’t want to lie again.
If I lie again then I’ll really be a bad person.
How many times did I lie last week?
I can’t use the same lie or they’ll know that I’m doing it intentionally.
I don’t want to say no.
I miss when I used to say yes.
When I would go out with my friends and we’d explore the campus together,
or when we’d watch movies in the study room and talk for hours.
I can’t remember the last time I said yes.
The things– I want to say yes,
but I can’t.
Maybe if I start my homework now, I won’t have to lie.
Maybe if I just told the truth, I wouldn’t have to lie.
It’s easier to say no than the alternative,
which is explaining why I’m saying no.
How can I explain something that I don’t even understand?
I want to say yes but I say no.
I can’t remember the last time I had a genuine conversation,
the kind that hurts your head because it’s so deep but you can’t stop because it’s so enticing,
or the last time I had a genuine laugh,
the kind that doesn’t stop and makes your cheeks hurt and makes your stomach feel like throwing up.
When was the last time I smiled genuinely?
My momma once told me that she loved my smile and four years ago, she asked me why I stopped.
Sometimes, I miss that little girl,
with warm brown eyes, and a bright wide smile, long curly hair that she wore in god awful pigtails.
I know she’s in here somewhere inside me, hiding in her little ball,
I just need to find her again.
Sometimes, I question whether the world hurt her or I did,
I thought I was her friend but I think she’s scared of me now,
and I can’t blame her.
Somedays, I’m scared of me too.
I don’t recognize myself anymore,
this new version of me is unlike anything else.
She wouldn’t want to see me like this,
I don’t want to see me like this,
maybe that’s why she refuses to speak to me.
Last semester, I was doing great,
I said yes to all my friends,
I did something fun every day,
I laughed and laughed until my face felt like it was going to fall off.
I tried hard to get my work done, even when I’d procrastinate for hours.
It felt rewarding and motivating to go to class.
I think that little girl was happy then, watching me grow and make something out of myself.
And now,
now I stay in my room all day.
I just sit in my chair for hours,
watching the time pass me by,
and the assignments pile up.
Sometimes, I’m late to class,
and I find myself not sparing a care.
I stopped putting in my best work,
starting submitting enough to get a decent grade.
And then, I just sit in my room.
My friends go out all the time,
“Hey, do you want to come with us today?”
“Sorry, I’m busy with work!” I say,
and then I watch them go,
and I hate myself for it.
I feel it in the way my stomach turns and my heart tugs,
the way my mind screams at me, “Why did you do that?”
And then when I finally say yes, too much time has passed by.
They have new inside jokes and I don’t get them.
I have to ask questions to get caught up,
I still don’t laugh, or smile,
I haven’t taken a selfie in a long time,
and they have group pictures without me now.
I feel like an outsider.
Perhaps it’s my fault for saying no all the time,
I pushed them away and I’m blaming them for it.
Sometimes, I don’t know whether it was my own doing or if they just don’t understand me.
Sometimes, I don’t understand me.
Somewhere down the line, I lost myself.
I lost my motivation,
I lost my laugh,
I lost my smile,
I lost my passion.
I lost that little girl.
When I look back and try to powerpoint the place I left myself,
I am surprised by all the dead ends.
Have I ever truly known myself?
You see, I live in a constant state of survival,
my childhood was made up of a house in flames and a broken family.
I don’t have many memories of happiness or peace.
I was happy last semester though,
I dressed in skinny jeans and cute shirts,
I curled my hair and did my nails.
Nowadays, I put my hair in a ponytail and put on some sweats.
I’m comfortable, I say, but I remember how good it felt to get dressed up for the fun of it.
And work– well, work is work,
it’s nothing special.
I feel like all I do is work.
I wonder, am I missing the college experience?
I’ll never be this free again,
if I don’t live it up then what’s the point?
I made the most of last semester so why can’t I seem to do the same now?
What happened to me?
It’s just work, work, work,
and excuses, excuses, excuses.
I want to live and not just survive,
but what if surviving is all I can do?
College has to be more than this– it has to.
They say college is what you make it,
if that’s the case, then I’m the problem.
“It’s the second semester blues,” they say,
they couldn’t be any more right.
It’s only natural to feel this way, they say,
and in a way, that’s comforting.
In a way, that’s comfortable,
it’s comfortable knowing that I’m not alone, knowing that this is temporary.
Like every other time I felt lost, this too, will go away.
I’ll be okay,
I’ll find that little girl,
I’ll say yes and go out for hours and come back in with rosy cheeks that hurt,
I’ll reconnect with my friends,
I’ll find a good schedule.
I’ll find my love for school.
My college experience will not be this.
I won’t let it be this.
I have survived many things and the second semester blues will not be the thing to take me down.
“Be kind to yourself,” that was the quote on a poster board I saw in a middle school hallway just last week.
I remember smiling to myself when I saw it.
I laughed a little, it was so silly and yet, I needed to see that.
I had forgotten to be kind to myself.
Life is hard but it’s twice as hard when you’re beating yourself up too,
the world is already out to get us, so don’t be out to get yourself with them.
It’s okay to be sad, to say no, to stay in your room for the whole day,
What’s not okay is staying there for so long,
What’s not okay is believing you deserve it, that you belong there.
You don’t.
So if you read this poem and felt it all too real,
just know you’re going to be okay, you’re going to get better,
You’re going to find that college spark again,
I promise.
Just be kind to yourself,
there is nothing wrong with you.
If you need time to break– break.
But afterwards, when you’re ready: heal and then live.
I’m still learning that every day.
But day by day, I’m getting better,
day by day, we’ll get better.
Today, my friends went to a picnic.
“Do you want to come with us today? We miss you.”
I felt my stomach twist in guilt,
but also, with something new.
I felt ready again,
felt brave enough to step out of my room.
brave enough to say yes again.
“Yeah, sure. I’ll be there in a moment!”
There was a light breeze in the air,
it was golden hour and the sun was dancing on our skin.
I laughed and smiled,
not as hard as I used to, but it was genuine.
It was real.
And I was happy,
I felt okay.
I felt alive.
I could breathe again.
It might get hard again,
next week, the clouds may thunder and rain all over me.
But I’m not going to give up.
I’m going to keep getting up,
keep surviving day by day until I can live again,
and when I find that little girl and laugh without restraint and live without guilt– freely, passionately,
I’m going to hold on tightly to that girl and never let her go again.
Until then, let’s try to ride this wave together through the second semester blues.
I believe in you, just as I believe in me too.
The opinions expressed in this article are the writer’s own and do not reflect the views of Her Campus.
This article is written by a student writer from the Her Campus at Winthrop chapter.