I remember finding this club my freshman year, discovering interests in myself I didn’t know were there. I encountered people outside of the freshman-year-dorm-bubble I inevitably put myself in, and couldn’t believe the sense of community they offered me, a newcomer. I yearned to spend more time with them, despite my fear of being annoying, and through reading pieces as they were published I found we were more alike than I ever thought possible. I remember sitting at work reading all three blogs posted in the 2022 Valentine's day collection of blogs posted, one of them written by Kate Castello. Since that day, I hadn’t revisited these blogs. But as I scrolled through the website before writing this, please, leave me alone brought a sense of familiarity to me, as the memory of that day flooded my brain, and I took a reread.
I cannot imagine my freshman year brain reading this. The words hopeless romantic don’t quite encapsulate the state I fell into freshman year. It was a constant loop of a new campus crush, or person on Hinge, or someone I wrote a missed connection to, taking up every space in my brain. I was so focused on any ounce of romantic attention I could grab, no matter how it made me feel afterwards. I can picture myself reading the words “I want to be alone,” and thinking: well, this one doesn’t pertain to me right now. And I wish, so deeply, I could run back to that girl, sitting at her campus job, and beg her to just listen.
Two years later, I’m in a relationship I wouldn’t trade for the world. I feel loved in ways I didn’t think capable, understood, and cared for. I know the love I have to give and I know that it’s enough. And I know that, in order to get here, I had to be alone. I just wish I knew that sooner;I wish I listened to Kate.
Link to original piece:
No Comments.