I recently watched The Holdovers, a movie I recommend if you went to a stuffy school on the East Coast and/or didn’t have the most orthodox adolescent upbringing. Inside the movie theatre, I’m all of the above and awestruck.
Dominic Sessa’s character Angus Tully, sharing the characteristics above, says something so simple yet pertinent to my state: “I can’t keep it together. I lie. I steal. I piss people off. I don’t have any friends — real friends.”
Sans the stealing, I’m instantly swarmed by validation. I reminisce on my days in high school. How COVID chewed up and spat out my time there. How I dealt with the grief of a major death in my family shortly after. And how my relationships with friends became so tainted as a result.
I don’t have any friends — real friends.
The year you graduate is jarring. The first half you’re in high school, and the second, you’ve landed in your new home for the next four years or so. With that comes the urgency to rebuild your community. I don’t think I’ve ever so viscerally experienced the concept of humans being social creatures more than I have here, and this is where the rope begins to slip out of my hands. Coming out of what I endured, it was as if I completely forgot what it was like to accommodate myself interpersonally again.
Friends felt foreign but something so desperately yearned for — which made for a pretty odd relationship.
I read an article by Alexa Chung about 40 things she’s learned at 40. Coming in third is: “Your friends will be one of the greatest romances of your life.” Now, the end of term is imminent, prompting self-reflection as a first-year navigating this new experience of mine.
I realized that I’d become too comfortable in solitude that it did more harm than its intention to protect me. An impenetrable book, tightly closed. And the incessant questions I’d ask myself — why am I like this? Why can’t I connect? It’s come to a point where forgiveness has become something practiced. Putting pressure on yourself and doubting your value based on a lack of connections: it’s tiring. Things will work out.
Only through forgiveness can the tug of war wane.