The sun slaps my face, and the moisture from the humid air dampens my skin as I stand in a long queue, waiting for students to check into the campus. The sight of red bricks seems eerily inviting—as if beckoning me to embark on a difficult challenge—simultaneously making my heart pound and my stomach churn with a nauseous feeling of nervousness. Is this going to be my year? I lose myself in this exquisite thought of excitement until the queue shortens and it is finally my turn to enter the campus, prompting me to abandon my fantasy.
As I drag my suitcase on the newly renovated path, an image of my parents dragging my suitcases while I explored the tall buildings with an anticipation of a new free life flashes in front of my eyes. It has been a year. I am still feeling the same excitement, and perhaps fear, that I felt when I first stepped foot on the premises of this campus. I thought a lot would change in a year—my life would be completely different in the months that would pass by in these academic buildings that fostered critical thinking and interdisciplinary education and the residence halls that boasted of diversity and inclusivity. However, much to my fervent disappointment, I was still the same person that I was on my first day at Ashoka. Perhaps just lonelier. But was it necessarily a bad thing?
I shun away my thoughts and make my way to my new room in the oldest residence hall that no one wanted to live in. It had been a very long journey from the airport, and I was extremely tired. I freshened up, put a clean bedsheet over the mattress, and tried sleeping. As soon as I turned off the lights and closed my eyelids, the darkness of my room hovered over me. I missed home—family, food, the places, and even the light, cold scent of flowers and grass that lingered in the air. With the strong smell of napthelene balls from my bags loitering around, I knew I was about to get sick, just like I caught a cold last year, somewhat around the same time. Faithful to my anticipation, I wake up with a sore throat, a blocked nose, and an aching head. More bothersome than the physical symptoms of unease, I find myself wrapped up in a tangled thread of worry. Fear and anxiety envelop me. I thought it would be easier to navigate college as a second-year student; however, I am still entangled in the same worries and thoughts. As much as I believed that I had settled in college, three and a half months of being at home had changed something in me. I became so attached, or rather re-attached, to everything at home that being at college feels as if I have to adjust to everything from the start.
At breakfast, I see a group of friends giggling, and it reminds me of the social incompetence I felt during O’week. I feel the same wave of insecurity and self-consciousness wash over me. In my relentless pursuit of chasing my academic goals, I have always neglected my social life. My worry then shifts to my courses, professors, grades, extracurriculars and everything that I can possibly think about as a college student. I feel stuck in a thought spiral, with all the threads getting knotted and tightening until it feels like the thread will break.
I am a second-year student now, and contrary to what I thought, I dont have everything figured out. I still feel the same anxiety. Homesickness still seeps into my cold room through the tiny spaces on my windows. I still worry that I will be, or perhaps already am, a failure. However, I also think it is important to acknowledge the shortcomings of this loop that I feel stuck in. Even if I feel the same feelings, I am not in the same place. I have navigated nine courses, four clubs and societies, two internships, and much more that, even if I do not mention on my resume, has still contributed to my overall growth. I may not have a vibrant social life, but I have peaceful moments of solitude as well as people I can count on. I may not have it all figured out, but I am always moving. There is no one direction of my growth; however, when I zoom out and see things from a different perspective, I realize that I have come much far from where I thought I was. And then, the giggling of the students blends into a synchronous melody in the mess. The undercooked eggs on my plate seem familiar, the buzzing email notifications seem comforting, and the faces do not seem alien anymore. I lived, and I will live in this place. I changed, and I will let this place change me—not to the point of unrecognition but that of sweet familiarity.