The Diary Opens

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.

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