Finding my place amongst strangers

I have a brief memory — it’s more of a feeling than a memory — of my kindergarten teacher playing blocks with me because I was too shy to play with the other kids. I have very few other memories of this time in my life, obviously, so I can’t verify it. But, as I said, it might be more of a feeling than a memory, an image my brain conjured up based on the emotions I’ve felt all throughout my childhood. Whether it’s true or not, the emotions are real, and they’re the same emotions I felt my first week at Hopkins. 

I desperately wanted friends, both back in kindergarten and as a freshman at college. I’ve always been the quiet kid — the kid who would rather get lost in books than go outside. At college, I was determined to reinvent myself, to be someone everyone wanted to hang out with, to be “fun.”

Before anyone feels too sorry for me, let me assure you I did have friends in kindergarten and all throughout growing up, and they were great friends, too. We had sleepovers and went out together and stuck together in school. I just always felt like I was the least fun of the group. 

Looking back, the fact that they stuck with me means something. It means that I wasn’t necessarily “not fun”; I just felt “not fun.”

During Orientation Week, I was convinced I would never find friends at Hopkins precisely because I wasn’t “fun” enough. I stayed in my room, terrified to go meet people. And when I did attend events, I stood just off to the side, a smile on my face as I pretended that I was enjoying myself. 

It turns out you can’t reinvent yourself, become someone everyone wants to hang out with, become “fun.” But if you find the people who like you anyway, you’ll do just fine.

I am so incredibly grateful for the people I met the first week of classes. Within days, they turned my college experience around. And now, after three years of family dinners, study sessions and an ever-changing list of hobbies for all of us, they’re still here. I just stayed me, and I found my people anyway. 

That’s not to say I haven’t changed at all. I’ve changed on purpose, and I’ve changed accidentally. But I’ve stopped pursuing change for the sole purpose of validation. Throughout my time at Hopkins, I’ve grown more confident, and while I’m still shy when meeting new people, I also share more of myself with the ones who’ve stuck around. 

I’ve been through periods where I had a lot of friends and others where I had not so many. Year seven was particularly rough — new school and old me didn’t quite gel. Year eight was better, and year nine was great. I was scared that freshman year at Hopkins would be the same as year seven, but looking back, I think it topped year nine. 

Looking back, I think all my years at Hopkins so far have been some of my favorites yet. I’m so happy that I got involved in the organizations I did (shout out to The New-Letter), that I took the classes I did and that I made the friends I did. I wish I could tell past-me that she’ll love college and that she’ll grow so much and that she’ll cherish the people in her life and feel cherished in return.

I’m at a point in my life where I spend more time thinking about the future than I do about the present. Maybe it’s not the healthiest thing, but it’s what senior year has been all about. I’m scared that after college, my friends and I will grow apart because we won’t live next door to each other. I’m scared that I’ll have to make new friends, which I don’t think I’m very good at. And I’m definitely scared that I won’t make any new friends at all, and it’ll be like year seven all over again. 

But I’m working on reframing my view of friendship, working on reframing my view of myself in friendships. I’m learning that it takes time to settle in and find your people. It also takes some growth. Like it or not, I’ll have to do it again once I leave Hopkins, and I’ll have to do it every time I go somewhere new. 

I hope that I can take the acceptance I’ve felt from my friends at Hopkins and remind myself that it’s what I deserve. I hope that I won’t change myself to find my people, and I hope that I’ll find them anyway. Mostly, I hope that as I grow old, my people will grow old with me.

Yana Mulani is a senior from Dubai, U.A.E. majoring in Economics, English and International Studies. Her column discusses how her past intertwines with her present as she navigates a period of growth and discovery. She is a Magazine Editor and a previous Editor-in-Chief for The News-Letter.