I heard a song the other day that spoke to me in an internal way. I felt these words in my system, that feeling when someone can seamlessly put into words exactly how you feel and the way you're reacting to everything. This song, "How to never stop being sad" by Dandelion Hands has completely encapsulated how I feel when I am alone. When it is 4 am and no one is asking anything of me, yet I feel so lonely and so sad.

Here are the words to this piece as well as the link, one that I feel compelled to share with everyone around me. I highly suggest listening to it while reading along.

"Repeat to yourself that they’re not really gone
time has proven that fooling yourself into believing
a lie is the most effective way to deal with
things you have no control over
keep listening to the mixtapes they made you
over-analyze every single word you hear
“was this a sign that things were going wrong”
no no, you were the one that cared too hard, not them
stay up every single night staring at your phone
either attempting to gather up the courage to
turn these demons, these constant reminders of
your loneliness into nothing more than a bad dream
or praying just for one second you could feel
the warmth of equally returned love
go out for coffee four times a week by yourself
always bring your notebook, never stop writing
leave little comics and thank you notes with your tip
watch them smile as you get in your car
always talk down on yourself whenever possible
my life is shit because i deserve it, right?
you must have done something real bad
its nearly impossible for you to cry now
avoid your friends for weeks even though
they’re the only sense of consistency you have
left in your life, if they really wanted
to see you they’d come, but they won’t (who cares?)
allow yourself to lose interest in the things you love
watch as you begin to take a backseat to the
world around you, don’t fight it
become a secondary character in your own motion picture
but most importantly drown every single one of
your feelings in old stolen rum, learn to
love the taste of it dripping down your throat
find comfort in the warmth coming from your
stomach, you’re drinking bottled love now
you don’t need other people to drive away your loneliness
you just needed to find a way to talk to it"

-Dandelion Hands

I sat in my bed as the early morning light swam through my blinds and realized how powerful this piece really was. I was doing so many of these things, and I was questioning why I was so sad all the time. I also realized just how much of this pain had to do with college. I will come right out and say I am not cut out for college. It is a time full of either loneliness or freedom, depending on how you look at it. However when you're 9 hours away from home, sometimes it is a painful cocktail of both. Now I love my friends, don't get me wrong. They have all the kinds of attributes in which I wish I found inside of myself. They make me laugh and enjoy my life 100 times more when I'm around them. But it is when I'm alone that it begins to hurt, when I'm avoiding my responsibilities while a montage of the consequences of my awful life decisions plays on loop in my head. This age is not for me. This age where everyone is so selfish and just looking for the next mouth, the next high, the next weekend. It isn't that I'm not enjoying my youth either, I am. I love the feeling of being even remotely invincible every time I go out with my friends. It just feels like no one is looking for the next love. I'm the kind of person that functions of affection and attention. I need to be cared for and looked after, and college just isn't the right place for a person that feels all these things. These semesters are heartless. They take and take and take from me and I'm living in a constant chain of white lies so that my parents think everything is okay, that I am okay.

It used to never be like this when I was growing up. Those were the years without alarms, but the sound of my mom's voice waking me up. The warmth of her hug in the morning, not the blaring sound of my alarm waking me up feeling alone even when I'm not, just to drag myself to a class that might as well be taught in Korean. I used to love the holidays and the relief they brought me, but now they just bring less faces and I notice the wrinkles of my loved ones more and more each year. Every holiday break is just a time for me to blindly forget my responsibilities and anxieties that wait for me back at school.

It isn't like I don't love my school either, I do. I love my college and this town and mostly the people inside it. I have cultivated an amazing group of friends that I've had since the very first night of college, there is always something to do and someone to be with, but sometimes all of these pros are drowned out by the need for stability and normalcy. I know there will never be another time in my life when I can get home from the bar at 2 am and write a paper for my 11 am class and somehow manage to get there the next day, just to do it all over again two days later. I value this time, this absurd life. I just need a balance and that is something I've never found in my three years at college.

I feel ahead of my peers on the maturity scale in this aspect. I'm ready to be real. I'm ready to have real relationships and experiences and stop messing with these shadow people that just stand behind each other expecting something new to happen while they just stand aside. I'm ready for "equally returned love" and I'm tired of these juvenile questions I have to ask myself every time I begin a new relationship or the college equivalent of one. You will really mess yourself up in the head if you think everyone wants the same things as you, or loves in the same way. I just wish someone would've told me that back when I was 18 and thought I was leaving all the "immature boys" back in high school. Immature people in general actually. However, there are just some people that college has not changed for the better, the kinds that can't even answer a text message because they're afraid of feeling anything real.

All I know is I am ready for my life. I am enjoying this youth, I am happy, but I am not fulfilled sometimes. I feel as if I am just sitting here going through the motions until it all takes shape. While I'm appreciating the memories, there will always be a part of me that craves this basic human need of normalcy that college will never supply me with. I also know I'm not alone. I know that so many people I know feel like this, we're all just waiting to find each other. Know that there are people out there that are just as tired as you are of it all.

I also know that all this will come and that in the wake of this craving of stability, I am here. I am 20-years-old and I am in this limbo hookup culture that there is nothing I can do to change. I must value these experiences and know that I have normalcy coming, I just have to go through a few speed bumps first. I cannot wallow in the things I don't have, the feelings I haven't yet felt, that is a recipe for staying sad. I do not want to stay sad. I cannot keep doing the things in that song over and over it, just isn't good for my health. I am relishing the now, even if it brings forth insurmountable stress. I am here. I will one day be there. There is no need for sad.