At first, you don't even realise yourself slipping away.
It's a new place, a new group of people, a new set of responsibilities, and you're out of your depth. You refocus your time and energy into these things, building up your courage to experience as many things as you can. You put your old life on the back burner.
Soon, you realise things. Huh. I don't act like myself around these people. I want to, but it's daunting. I know I can only find true friends if I'm being myself. But I can't do it. Not yet. I'll try again tomorrow.
Tomorrow is prolonged – not truly the day after, but a constant blanket term for "one day". It stretches out, and on one afternoon, when you're eating a salad opposite someone who barely knows you, you wonder, What the hell am I doing here? You are under pressure to say something. One, cat and dog Mississippi. Two, cat and dog Mississippi. The silence is deafening, an ugly creature. Better to kill it than to worry about anything else. So you ask a boring question with an answer you don't really care about. You laugh about things you never would find funny. But at least the silence is gone.
Another day, you are upset. You have been crying, though you aren't sure if this shows on your face or not. You decide to experiment: Will they notice? Do they care about me? Words barely escape your tired mouth the entire time. Minutes, then hours, pass by. They'll care. They'll ask me what's wrong. There's still time, you think. Until there isn't any time left and everyone is packing up their laptops and notebooks. No one asked you if you were okay. It's not their fault. I'm an idiot. They think that I'm always like that. I hate this so much.
You see your old friends in a café for lunch. For a short while, you find yourself falling back into that habit of self-censorship. What the fuck am I doing? I'm not afraid of them judging me. It's a strange energy – like everyone is a little too used to how things are now, like everyone has forgotten how things used to be on a subconscious level. Suddenly though, everything is back to how it used to be and you laugh so much – not the fake giggle you forced yourself to commit to, but the real, deep laughter that spills out of its cage until you can't stop the happy tears from following it. It's one of the best days you've had in a while.
'Tomorrow' still hasn't arrived. You envy that girl in your class who seems to be comfortable acting like herself around all these new people. Not a malicious envy, but one that stems from longing, because deep down, you think you'd be good friends with her if only you could be your usual self. You want to break away from the group of people you've met and settled with, because you only did so out of pure convenience. They just don't understand me, you've decided. But is it too late? Everyone seems to have found their cliques, so now it's even harder to find new friends. You feel depressed one day because you feel so alone. You spend ten minutes crying silently in a bathroom stall covered in scribbles.
You miss your best friend. When you see her nowadays, it feels as though you are both unhappy with your lives in some way or another. Perhaps it's the distance from each other that you both can't deal with. You still have good times together when you see her, no doubt, but that's the problem: you don't see her enough. It's my fault.
And then one day, you notice you're different. You've grown used to having that layer around your true personality – that boring damn layer. You used to joke about the most stupid things, make the dumbest faces and voices, laugh at yourself. Now you've hidden those away until you're with a select few, and you hate it. You miss yourself. ✦
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