People think loneliness means being alone.

Honestly, I used to think that too.

That it means sitting alone, eating alone, walking alone.

But college taught me something else.

You can be surrounded by people and still feel like you have no one.

And today was exactly one of those days.

The hostel corridor was noisy as usual.

Girls laughing.

Someone shouting on a phone call.

Music from another room.

Everything felt normal.

Everyone looked happy.

Except me.

I had left dinner early, telling everyone I had a headache.

Not exactly a lie.

My head did hurt.

But not because of illness.

Sometimes emotions are heavier than fever.

I entered my room and locked the door behind me.

My roommate had gone home for the weekend, so the room was unusually quiet.

Usually I liked that.

Today I didn’t.

Silence felt strange.

Too loud.

I threw my bag on the chair and sat on my bed.

My phone was in my hand.

I kept staring at it.

No messages.

No calls.

No one asking where I disappeared.

Funny how we pretend not to care.

And still check our phones every two minutes.

I laughed at myself and threw it aside.

“Pathetic,” I muttered.

Maybe I was tired.

Maybe I was emotional.

Or maybe I was just lonely.

I stood up and walked toward the small window beside my bed.

Outside, the campus looked peaceful.

The hostel building opposite mine was glowing with warm yellow lights.

Some girls were standing on their balconies, laughing and talking like they had all the time in the world.

For a moment, I just stood there watching them.

It wasn’t jealousy.

At least I don’t think so.

It was more like a quiet question.

How do people do it so easily?

How do they talk so naturally?

How do they share everything so effortlessly?

And why did it always feel so difficult for me?

It wasn’t that I hated people.

I didn’t.

In fact, I liked people.

I liked listening to them.

Their stories.

Their silly complaints.

Their little joys.

I remembered birthdays.

I remembered favorite foods.

I remembered small details others forgot.

I cared.

Maybe too much.

But when it came to myself—

I became silent.

Almost invisible.

Sometimes I wanted to speak.

To tell someone, “Today was bad.” “I feel strange.” “I am not okay.”

Simple words.

Very simple.

And yet somehow impossible.

Every time I tried, something stopped me.

A fear.

A hesitation.

A voice inside saying, “They won’t understand.”

So I learned to smile instead.

It was easier.

People accept smiles.

People don’t ask questions when you smile.

My phone suddenly buzzed.

My heart jumped.

I picked it up too quickly.

A notification.

Just a random app reminder.

Not a person.

I laughed at myself again.

“Seriously?”

Even now.

Even tonight.

A small part of me was still waiting for someone.

That realization hurt more than I wanted to admit.

I placed the phone down slowly and looked around my room.

That was when my eyes fell on the cupboard.

And without really knowing why—

I walked toward it.

I started opening random things.

Old files.

Books.

Clothes.

No reason.

Just trying to distract myself.

Then my hand touched something at the bottom.

A dusty cardboard box.

I pulled it out.

It looked old.

Forgotten.

The edges were worn out.

I sat on the floor and opened it.

Inside were random things.

A school badge.

A dried flower.

A broken pen.

A friendship band.

And under all that—

a blue notebook.

No.

A diary.

My diary.

My first one.

For a moment, I just stared at it.

I hadn’t seen it in years.

I thought I had lost it.

Or maybe I had hidden it so well that even I forgot where it was.

Slowly, I picked it up.

The cover was bent.

The pages looked old.

My handwriting on the front made me smile.

“Wow… this is embarrassing.”

I almost put it back.

Almost.

But something stopped me.

Maybe curiosity.

Maybe nostalgia.

Maybe the strange feeling that tonight I needed it.

So I opened it.

The first page looked yellow with age.

At the very top, in messy handwriting, were words written by fourteen-year-old me.

I read them slowly.

And froze.

"I am writing this because maybe one day someone will read me."

My fingers tightened on the page.

I don’t know why that sentence hurt.

But it did.

A lot.

Outside, someone laughed loudly in the corridor.

Inside, everything became silent.

I turned the page.

And started reading.

For a strange moment, it felt like time had stopped.

The noisy hostel corridor, the unread messages, the bad day—all of it faded into the background.

It was just me and those old pages now.

Me—and a version of myself I had almost forgotten.

And somehow, I already knew—

whatever waited on the next page was going to change something inside me.

Whatever waited on the next page—

it didn’t look extraordinary.

It looked childish.

The paper felt thinner than I remembered.

Old.

Fragile.

Like if I held it too tightly, even the memory would tear.

And suddenly—

there she was.

Fourteen-year-old me.

Messy handwriting.

Uneven margins.

Too much confidence for someone whose English clearly needed help.

I smiled before even reading.

At the top of the page, it said—

'I am writing this diary in English because I like English.'

I laughed.

"Of course you are."

That sounded exactly like me.

Simple.

Direct.

And unnecessarily dramatic.

That was such a fourteen-year-old thing to write.

No explanation.

No hesitation.

Just confidence.

As if liking English was enough reason to write an entire diary in it.

And honestly—

maybe it was.

The next line made me laugh even harder.

'My English is wrong somewhere because I am 14 years old when I write letter.'

"Somewhere?" I whispered.

"It was wrong almost everywhere."

But strangely—

it felt cute.

Not embarrassing.

Just... honest.

I kept reading.

'This is the time period of Corona virus of 2020-21. I think who was read this diary, he/she will not in that period. But I am there.'

I stopped for a second.

That sentence was terrible.

But somehow—

it perfectly captured fourteen.

That confidence.

That innocence.

That belief that your diary is documenting world history.

I smiled and kept going.

'As I tell you that our schools were close in the month of March.'

Yes.

That much was true.

And then—

the next line.

The one that made me laugh out loud.

'My school was close on which paper? It was math! I hate math.'

I covered my face.

"Oh wow."

I could actually imagine myself writing that.

Probably with a huge smile.

Probably feeling like life had finally done something nice for me.

The entire world was entering lockdown.

People were scared.

The news was terrifying.

And fourteen-year-old me was celebrating a cancelled maths exam.

Honestly—

fair enough.

The next line only made it better.

'I am praying to God on that day that anyhow my maths paper cancelled and "Hurray!"'

"That is so embarrassing," I muttered.

But I was smiling.

Actually smiling.

For the first time that night.

Maybe that was the strange magic of old diaries.

They don't just show you who you were.

They remind you how loudly you used to feel things.

At fourteen, happiness was simple.

Cancelled exam?

Best day ever.

Unexpected holidays?

A blessing.

No school?

Pure joy.

No overthinking.

No pretending.

No complicated emotions.

Just excitement.

And while reading her words—

I realized how much I missed that version of myself.

That loud version.

That unfiltered version.

That girl who could celebrate something as small as a cancelled exam like she had won a war.

Somewhere along the way—

I had become quieter.

Heavier.

More careful.

I moved to the next page.

Still smiling.

Expecting more dramatic complaints.

More bad grammar.

More little chaos.

But the smile slowly faded.

Because the handwriting had changed.

It looked slower.

Less excited.

And somehow—

older.

The next page didn't begin with excitement.

It began with a complaint.

And for some reason—

that frightened me more.

The next page didn’t begin with excitement.

It began with a complaint.

And somehow—

that frightened me more.

I looked at the first line.

'my mother made my life hell.'

I smiled.

A small one.

“You really were dramatic.”

But I didn’t laugh this time.

Because maybe—

for the fourteen-year-old writing this—

it really did feel like hell.

I kept reading.

'She think if I can't do work at home I will not get any success in my life.'

That sounded exactly like my mother.

Not soft.

Not patient.

Never the type to explain things gently.

If a plate slipped from my hand—

I was careless.

If I forgot something—

I was irresponsible.

If I did something wrong—

somehow it became proof that I could do nothing right.

At fourteen, those words felt bigger than they probably were.

Children don’t hear lessons.

They hear judgments.

They don’t hear,

“I’m preparing you.”

They hear,

“You are not enough.”

And maybe—

that was what hurt the most.

Not the scolding.

Not the work.

The feeling that no matter what I did—

it was never enough.

But now—

reading this years later—

I understood something fourteen-year-old me never could.

My mother was never the villain of this story.

She was the person I loved most.

Maybe still the person I love most.

She did love me.

I know that now.

She just didn’t know how to show it softly.

Maybe life had taught her toughness—

so toughness was the only love she knew how to give.

Maybe she wasn’t trying to hurt me.

Maybe she was trying to prepare me for a world she knew would not be gentle.

But children don’t understand intentions.

They understand feelings.

And back then—

all I felt was hurt.

I looked back at the diary.

'I don't think so because I don't like work to do.'

That made me smile again.

Of course.

Classic fourteen-year-old logic.

No arguments.

Just honesty.

But slowly—

the page became heavier.

The house had become smaller during lockdown.

Too many people.

Too many voices.

Too little silence.

And somehow—

nowhere to place my feelings.

Not in my room.

Not at the dining table.

Not beside my family.

So I learned to hide them.

That became my special skill.

Looking normal.

Feeling terrible.

Smiling in front of everyone—

then quietly breaking somewhere else.

No one really noticed.

Maybe because I never let them.

Maybe because I had already learned that some pain is easier to swallow than explain.

I read the next line.

'I feel very lonely in the world.'

My fingers stopped.

There it was again.

Lonely.

Same word.

Different page.

Different age.

Still there.

Maybe some feelings really do grow with us.

I kept reading slowly now.

'Then I pray to God. That gave someone which can feel my feeling.'

I looked away from the diary.

Because I knew exactly what came after that.

The rooftop.

I never wrote that part.

But I remembered it.

Some nights—

after everyone slept—

I would quietly go upstairs.

To the rooftop.

That was my place.

Not because it solved anything.

But because it listened.

The village nights were peaceful.

No traffic.

No noise.

Just stars.

Wind.

And silence.

I would complain to the sky like it was a person.

Tell it everything I couldn’t tell anyone else.

And when the wind touched my face—

I used to imagine someone was consoling me.

Not answering.

Not fixing anything.

Just listening.

At fourteen—

that was enough.

I looked back at the diary.

'But God is also like my family. He is also not helping me.'

That line hurt.

Because even at fourteen—

I had already started believing silence meant abandonment.

Then came the next line.

'There is one more person another from this diary is my sister. I shares everything to her... but she can't feel that feeling.'

I read that twice.

And suddenly I understood something.

No wonder I wrote so much.

The diary wasn’t paper.

It was the only place where I felt heard.

And maybe—

that was the beginning of everything