Curre, mi fili

This semester has been strangely boring, and I know that sounds almost ridiculous when I look at everything that has happened because somehow I got an internship, somehow I became a coordinator of a club that I genuinely love, and somehow I am doing all the things that I thought would make me feel like I was finally moving somewhere. On paper, I should probably be happy with myself, and maybe I am, somewhere underneath all of this, but there is still this strange dissatisfaction that I cannot really explain because I keep achieving things and yet I do not feel like I am actually living any more than I was before.

Maybe I ran too far. I think somewhere between trying to build a career, trying to do well, trying to be useful, trying to become someone I could be proud of, and trying to keep myself busy enough that I would never have to think about what I was missing, I somehow lost the people I was supposed to be doing all of this with. I kept running because running felt productive, and I never really stopped to ask what I was running away from or, more importantly, who I was leaving behind while I was doing it.

Now I see my friends almost every day, which should make this easier, but somehow it makes it worse because we are still around each other without really being with each other anymore. Most of our conversations have somehow compressed themselves into work, deadlines, meetings, clubs, classes, and whatever needs to get done next, and I keep thinking about how strange it is that I can talk to someone every single day and still feel like I have not spoken to them in months. We know what each other is doing, but we do not really know what each other is feeling anymore.

There used to be this spontaneity to friendship that I think I miss more than anything. We would make stupid plans, waste entire evenings, sit somewhere for no reason, laugh about things that were not even funny, and somehow those completely useless moments became the memories that stayed with me. Now even when I see the same people, there is always somewhere we need to be, something we need to finish, or some responsibility waiting for us, and I suppose adulthood is partly learning that life gets busy, but I did not realise it would become this busy that I would start missing people while seeing them every day.

So everything has become this strange cycle of time. I wake up, I go out, I meet people, I talk, I work, I come back, and eventually I am alone in my room again, sitting in front of a screen and trying to type out whatever ache I cannot explain properly. I write because I do not really know what else to do with all the things that sit inside my head, and sometimes even while I am writing I do not understand what exactly is wrong with me. There are problems around me, obviously, there are things I could probably fix, things I could probably work harder on, things that other people would tell me are the real issues, but somehow none of them seem to explain why I can have a perfectly productive day and still come back feeling empty.

Maybe the problem is not that something is wrong. Maybe the problem is that something is missing. Weekdays at least give me somewhere to be. I meet people, I have work, I have responsibilities, and there is always some reason to leave my room, even if I do not particularly feel like it. There is movement everywhere, and because everyone else is moving too, I do not have to think too much about whether I am actually enjoying any of it. Then the weekend comes. And somehow weekends feel like a heartache.

I see people making plans, going out, meeting each other, having dinners, going to parties, doing all these small things that make a life feel like a life, and I somehow end up watching all of it from the outside. It is not even that I want to be doing exactly what they are doing because I do not think I need a party every Saturday to feel fulfilled, but I would like to have plans that I am excited about. I would like someone to call me and say, "Come on, let's go somewhere," without me having to be the person who initiates it every single time.

The people I know have plans. Somehow, nobody seems to have plans with me. And that sentence has been sitting in my head for a while because it sounds much more painful when you actually say it out loud. I can have people around me, I can know so many names, I can walk across campus and recognise faces everywhere, and yet when the weekend arrives, I somehow have nowhere to go and nobody to go with. So I end up spending another Saturday or Sunday alone in my room, telling myself that solitude is good for me, that I should learn to enjoy my own company, that I should use this time to understand myself better.

So I do. I take myself on these weird little dates every weekend, except there is no restaurant reservation, no movie, no party, and no one sitting across the table from me. It is just me trying to understand myself again, and honestly, I am getting very tired of being my own date. I know myself too well at this point. I know what I will order, what I will watch, what I will think about on the way back, and what time I will probably end up going to bed. There is something almost funny about it because I keep telling myself that I am becoming independent, that I am learning to enjoy my own company, when really I just know damn well that I am not going on a date this weekend and I am probably not going to a party either.

And maybe that is why the semester feels so boring. Not because nothing is happening, but because everything that is happening feels like it belongs to a life that I am maintaining rather than a life that I am actually experiencing.

I have achievements, but I miss memories. I have responsibilities, but I miss spontaneity. I have people around me, but I miss having people with me. I have somewhere to be almost every weekday, but when the weekend comes, I have nowhere I genuinely want to be. And I think somewhere along the way, I confused being busy with being fulfilled.

I kept running because I thought that if I ran far enough, I would eventually reach some version of myself that was satisfied with everything. I thought the internship would make me feel accomplished, the position would make me feel important, the work would make me feel useful, and maybe all of it does, but none of it can replace the feeling of sitting somewhere with your friends and realising that you have spent three hours doing absolutely nothing and somehow those were the best three hours of your week. That is what I miss. And maybe I am finally beginning to understand that there is only so far you can run before you have to turn around and see what you left behind. Because right now, I have somehow arrived at a place I spent so long trying to reach, and I am still sitting alone in my room wondering why I am not happier to be here.  Maybe I did not need another achievement. Maybe I just needed someone to make a plan with me and actually show up.