I Miss My Friends

By this time last year, I had already gone home about four or five times. This year, I haven’t left the city since the day I moved in. With Violet now in the city, RA responsibilities, and having work, I knew I’d be going home less. I still thought I would get to go home a little bit, though! I kind of missed my opportunities. I had a few weekends before I started working when I could’ve made it home, but now I have no free weekends. I have RA duties and/or work every weekend until the end of the semester. I really miss home, but I really, really miss my friends. I was so homesick last year, even though I was home so much. This year is a bit different. I wouldn’t really say I’m homesick; I would say I’m more "friendsick." I’ve met a lot of new people this year, and it’s nice having new friends, but they can’t replace my friends from home. I thought having my own dorm all to myself would be great, but I find myself quite lonely all the time. I don’t like coming back to a quiet room. I’ve been so excited to go home for Thanksgiving and Christmas, but now I’m not quite sure I’ll be able to. I was diagnosed with a terrible lifelong disease when I was born, and the doctors said I would never recover. That disease is FOMO. The fear of missing out has crippled me my whole life. I’ve always felt severe FOMO for whatever and whenever. Even if I really didn’t want to go, I’d still be torn about not being able to go. If I am not able to go home for the holidays, it will be the worst case of FOMO I have ever experienced. I want to see my friends so badly. Seeing Instagram posts, Snapchats, and group chat texts of invites might slowly kill me. I knew when I started working I was giving all these things up. I knew I was giving up the weekends, Halloweekend, holidays, and concerts. It doesn’t mean that it isn’t going to suck! I’ll hopefully find a way to make the best out of a crappy scenario. Whether that means eating KFC every night I’m in the city by myself or getting double meat at Chipotle, it will hopefully be okay. I have some good movies coming out that I'm excited for. I’ve been watching a lot of TV to make time pass faster. All of this is just thinking three months into the future. What if I am in the city all summer? I know Fritz will be here, so it won’t be so terrible. It would be my first summer out of Cooperstown. There would be no late-night Taco Bell runs to Oneonta, no cigars with Keegan, no kissing Simon, no lake days/nights or F1 races with Treston, making fun of PJ, no boys' nights with everyone at Declan’s, and, worst of all, no golf with Charlie, Ethan, or my dad in New York City. There’s just work and sweaty concrete. I have a belated birthday dinner tonight with some of my friends/floormates from last year. I’m excited to get out of my room other than for class. Have a great rest of your Wednesday!