I never thought that we would move, but I was wrong. I was 10 years old, sitting in my kitchen, when my parents told my siblings and me that we were moving from urban Union to rural Wantage. I later discovered that Wantage was seemingly in the middle of nowhere with farms and cows. I was surprised and confused. My parents told us that our family of six needed more room. They also wanted us to be in a safer area with a better school system.

I didn’t know how to feel. My memories were in Union. My life, my sports teams, and my friends, who I had known my entire life, were going to change. Would I even fit in at this new school? When I shared the news with my friends, they were sad to see me leave. They said that they would keep in contact with me. But they didn’t. They communicated with me for about a week, and I haven’t heard from them since.

We moved during Thanksgiving break. When I arrived at my new school, my classmates had only been told that I was from Union, which they likely had never heard of before.  Most of my new classmates had grown up together. They had common hobbies and shared memories. They talked about cows and farming, and I was a city girl living in a cow town.  I felt like an outcast. I was eventually welcomed into a wonderful friend group, but deep down, I felt nothing like them. I felt like I didn’t fit in with anybody at school.

When I began high school, we were in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic. Lockdown heightened my sense of isolation. When school reopened, I again felt like I had nobody. I was no longer in contact with my friends from middle school. Some days I would sit at a random place at lunch wanting to feel included. Other days, I would sit in my mother’s office (she’s the school nurse), and eat lunch to have some company.

During my sophomore year, I bonded with my older sister. We became friends with  members of our sports teams.  I often felt like I was included in social gatherings because my sister was invited. When I told my sister how I felt, she said that I was wrong. But when she went to college, everything I was worried about became true. Those friends seemed to disappear, and I felt even more alone. When junior year came around, my sister told me that I just needed to be myself and stop worrying about what people thought of me. So, I somewhat stopped caring and became closer to some of the girls from my travel soccer team. We now eat lunch together.

Yet, sometimes, I still feel alone and keep to myself. I feel like people are quick to judge me, which makes my loneliness worse. And sometimes, I feel like a ghost--like no one sees me--even at lunch. I know that the others are close. They hang out regularly without me. Sometimes, I think they forget that I can see their videos on Snapchat of them hanging out. Sometimes, they include me, and I feel like I’m their friend and that they’ve accepted me. But there was always the thought in the back of my head telling me this isn’t going to last long. At night, all I would think about is how difficult it can be to make friends who include me. However, recently, things have changed.. I’ve now embraced the phrase “I don’t care.” Why should I care so much about others who don’t seem to feel the same way about me? It’s empowering to acknowledge that I may not always fit in with these people, but that I deserve to find friends who accept me for who I am.

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