It is the first day of college. I sit in my desk chair staring at my empty desk, twisting one of my brand new mechanical pencils back and forth in my hand. It is relatively quiet; most of the parents have left for the night, trying to ignore the nagging feeling in the pits of their stomachs because they’re finally being forced to change. My own mom is back at her hotel, probably writing out lists of what I still need and what she needs to accomplish. Her stomach is not nagging yet, because she is still nagging me.

My roommate enters; we exchange pleasantries; she heads out to meet her friends for dinner, asks if I want to come; for some reason, I decline; she (accidentally) slams the door behind her; I am left in pseudo-silence again. Outside, someone screams. Someone else screams a response. I can practically hear them hugging. I panic, for the thousandth time that day, because I am worried that I will never hug anyone ever again. I keep coming back to what one of my friends told me: be social when you first get to college because people start to form groups and then it’s impossible to find friends. I can feel the groups forming like goosebumps under my skin, and for a second it feels as if these people are meeting their “friends for life” and that I am missing out and will be forever deficient as a result.

Then my friend texts me. And my mom calls me for the 50th time that hour. And my other roommate comes back and tells me about her horrible Zumba experience. And almost instantly, I am shaken out of my thoughts and back into the real world.

For me, overthinking is a double-edged sword. It is what allows me to easily analyze literature and to understand what those around me are feeling and to make painstakingly thought out decisions that still end up being horrible. It is my sense of logic and also the main source of my illusions; it is my means of transportation into the deepest corners of my mind, but also the force that holds me down when I am drowning. Overthinking is the reason why I got into college, but also the reason why I almost didn’t go.

I am in the process of streamlining my over thinking--of cutting the disillusioned critic from my mind while maintaining my ability to analyze the world around me. I realize that thinking about every interaction I have with every person and its implications for the rest of my life limits me from creating genuine relationships; relationships that stem from competition or obligation only serve to fuel those very processes.