Dean D.
Photography by Jerry Stamatelatos
If you’re reading this, I hope you’ll take a deep breath first.
One slow and deep breath. Because I know that feeling. The one where your chest gets tight in the dining hall, or walking across the park, watching groups of people who seem to have life figured out. The feeling of being surrounded by thousands of people, yet still being all alone.
I’m writing to tell you something I wish someone had told me: you are not behind. You are not broken. And you are not alone in feeling alone.
College has this strange way of selling us a story. That these are supposed to be “the best years,” that everyone else has found their people, their purpose, their place. But the truth is, so many of us are walking around with the same quiet ache, assuming we’re the only ones. The freshman eating alone in the corner booth. The junior transferring in who feels like everyone already has their inside jokes. The senior who has acquaintances but no one to call when things get hard. Community is sold as something that happens overnight, but real belonging? It’s slower. Messier. And it rarely looks like your Instagram feed.
So if you haven’t found your people yet, please don’t mistake that for a verdict on your worth. It just means you haven’t found them yet.
I know how exhausting it is to be the one always reaching out. To walk into a club meeting for the third time, hoping someone will say your name like they’re glad you’re there. To wonder if something is wrong with you because you haven’t clicked yet. There’s nothing wrong with you. Sometimes finding your people is less like a light switch and more like a slow-burning fire. It’s like slowly realizing the person next to you in your 8 AM also loves movies, or the quiet kid in Chem Lab is also feeling like an outsider. Sometimes it’s one person. Sometimes it’s one conversation that turns into a second.
In the meantime, I want you to give yourself permission to take up space. You're not a nuisance, and no one is judging you. It’s okay to sit in the middle of the library, not the hidden corner. Go to the stupid campus event you’re pretty sure will be awkward – sometimes awkward is just the soil where real things start to grow. And be gentle with yourself on the nights when you’d rather order in and cry to a movie. Those nights count too. They’re not failures. They’re rest.
You belong here. Not because you’ve earned it by having a full social calendar, but because you’re here, breathing and trying. That is enough. I know it doesn’t feel like it right now, but you are going to find the right people, and they are going to be so glad they found you.
In the meantime, I’m glad you’re here. Reading this. Still showing up.
If you’re reading this… you are not alone.
Dean D., New York University
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