Who am I?
I am Kat. I am Siyu Wang. I am an international student. I am a daughter. I am a college freshman. I am a great baker. I am a roommate. I am a facilitator for Unite UW. I am the girl who cries over Finding Nemo. But who exactly am I?
Being a Chinese girl who went to a tiny Catholic high school in Michigan, I often feel lost on such a gigantic campus, geographically and emotionally. I go get breakfast with someone; I walk to class with someone else; I have lunch with someone; I do my homework with someone else. I am always wandering, from people to people, from places to places. I cannot find a community that I belong to. I am never alone, but I am always alone. I have a different face for each of my friend groups but no one can really define who I am. I am facing a problem that I have never faced before: personal identity crisis. I remember when I was staring at the typical gray and cloudy Seattle sky in the intersection of Mary Gates Hall and Suzzallo Library during a class exchange. I was surrounded by people that I may or may not know; everyone was hurrying to a place that they may or may not belong to. On this enormous campus, I feel like a drop of water in the ocean: I am surrounded by individuals who are just like me but not quite. Endless waves of new excitements washed away my energy. Exhaustion and frustration are drowning me in an undeadly way.
I started questioning myself, why can’t I fit in? Everyone else seems excited about this fascinating college life, why am I the only one who is exhausted? My sarcastic and my special sense of black humor led me to think that maybe it is some sort of psychological barrier that I have. What is wrong with me?
I am not the kind of person who just sits around and waits for things to happen. I started trying to hold on to chances that I can use to find my own community. “Have you ever had the feeling that you don’t belong here? Like during the game, you are literally in the middle of all the screamings and cheerings, but they just sound like they are from somewhere far, far, far away? ” One of my friends asked me after the Stanford football game. He came from China, and that was his first time in the United States. I was glad that someone else is sensing a similar vibe. I wanted to say something consoling, but I decided not to lie and be quiet about it. So he kept on talking: “Maybe it’s just because we are international students, the ‘locals’ think we are ‘fobs,’ after all we didn’t grow up in the same culture.” I did not know what to say to that either. He went back to his comfort zone, the zone where he only goes out with his Chinese friends to karaokes and Chinatown. After going through his recent Instagram pictures I decided that is not what I want. My parents are not paying half a million a year for drunk girls and packs of cigarettes. If that is called “fitting in” and “finding your own community,” I’d rather not. So I kept on wandering and pretending to be busy, just not to seem lost.
On a Tuesday afternoon, I decided to sit by the fountain and the roses to enjoy the rare sunshine in Seattle. I got bored with social medias on my communication devices, so I started observing people. I saw a couple of people walking and talking in the same group, but they were all nervously watching each other's reactions. I also saw two girls walking side by side closely but their facial expressions were awkwardly exaggerated. Interesting, I said to myself.
Maybe we are all lost and panicking, but none of us want anyone else to find out about it because somehow “trying to find friends” became a shame in this society. If you are actively trying to find friends, you are “desperate” and “weird.” Maybe every drop of water is worried about being left out by the ocean. Maybe I finally found my community: the group of scared and excited freshmen who are trying our best to find our positions in this university. I never found out what happened to my friend and his girls and alcohol, and I do not think I ever want to. I choose to be physically alone and keep waiting for the friends and communities I want in my college life rather than going along with whatever I can get. We are all alone, mentally, but we are alone together. And this collective solitude is exactly what makes us a community: we sense our own individuality and we are all eager for a sense of belonging.