The Girl Who Never Felt Enough
I run through the university corridors, weaving between students as I desperately try to make it to class on time.
“Ahhh! Why am I always late?”
I hate being late, yet somehow, here I am again, rushing through a crowd of students with my bag bouncing against my side. Honestly, I blame the university for not awarding me a room on campus. Commuting from home is the absolute worst, especially on mornings when traffic seems determined to ruin my entire day.
Nevertheless, I finally reach the lecture room just as the lecturer is greeting the students. I quietly slip inside, hoping my entrance goes unnoticed, and make my way to the back of the room.
Perfect. No attention. No unnecessary greetings. Just me, my seat, and hopefully a productive lecture.
I settle down and take out my notebook as the lecturer begins talking about diplomacy and foreign policy. As a third-year student majoring in Political Science, I should probably be more enthusiastic about the subject, but my mind is still recovering from the journey I have just endured.
Thankfully, the lecture eventually comes to an end.
I gather my belongings and leave the room almost immediately. Outside, I wait for Katherine, my closest friend at university. We met during our first year, and honestly, I don’t know how I would have survived this place without her.
She has made my university experience considerably more bearable.
When she finally emerges from the lecture room, she spots me and walks over with a teasing smile.
“Hey, stranger! I thought you weren’t going to make it to class today.”
I chuckle as we share a hug.
“Well, you know how traffic was. And I still have to walk ten minutes from the station to get here. What did you expect?”
She laughs, and we make our way towards the benches near the lecture theatre. Since it’s Monday and our next class is in an hour, we decide to sit for a while and catch up on our weekend adventures.
Or, more accurately, she tells me about hers while I listen.
Katherine launches into a detailed account of the amazing date she had with her boyfriend. From the food to the conversations and everything in between, she seems to have enjoyed every second of it.
I smile and listen, occasionally asking questions or teasing her about something she says.
When she finishes, I have absolutely nothing to contribute.
Not a single story.
It’s sad, I know, but I’ve grown accustomed to it.
My last relationship ended about three months ago, and since then, I’ve decided to take a break from dating. I tell myself that I’m perfectly fine being single, and most days, I believe it.
Besides, there are other things I should be concentrating on.
At least, that’s what I keep telling myself.
Eventually, our next lecture approaches, and before long, the day’s classes are over. I accompany Katherine to her room, where we spend a little more time talking before I finally make my way to the bus station.
As I settle into the journey home, my thoughts begin to wander.
And, as they often do, they take me back to the beginning.
Back to the girl I was before university, before the heartbreaks, before I began questioning whether I was ever going to experience the kind of love I read about in books.
My first relationship.
I started dating in high school, somewhere around Grade Eleven. At the time, it felt as though everyone around me had someone. My classmates talked about their boyfriends, shared stories about their romantic experiences, and giggled over things I couldn’t relate to.
I listened to them and wondered what it would feel like to have someone who liked me that way.
Someone who chose me.
Someone who looked at me and saw something beautiful.
By then, I had never been in a proper relationship, and I hadn’t even had my first kiss.
I was nervous about boys, especially when one approached me with romantic intentions. I never considered myself the kind of girl people admired from a distance.
You know those girls in movies and novels? The shy ones who barely speak but are somehow breathtakingly beautiful? The girls who don’t even realise how attractive they are until someone comes along and tells them?
Well, that wasn’t me.
At least, that wasn’t how I saw myself.
I was chubby, had a face covered in pimples, and struggled with painfully low self-esteem. Whenever I looked at the girls in my school, I couldn’t help comparing myself to them.
They seemed so effortlessly beautiful.
Their skin was clear, their noses were smaller, and they carried themselves with a confidence I could only dream of having.
Meanwhile, I was constantly aware of everything I disliked about myself.
My pimples were the first thing I noticed whenever I looked in the mirror, and I convinced myself that they were the first thing everyone else noticed too.
Whenever a boy approached me, I wondered whether he was genuinely interested in talking to me or whether he was simply looking at my face.
It sounds exhausting now, but back then, those thoughts were a normal part of my life.
And there was a reason for that.
My experiences in Grade Eight and Grade Nine had left a mark on me that I didn’t fully understand at the time.
Those were, without question, the worst two years of my school life.
I was constantly bullied by my classmates, including people I had considered my friends. They made fun of my pimples, my body, and the fact that I hadn’t developed a bigger chest.
It seemed as though there was always something about me that deserved to be laughed at.
I remember pretending that their comments didn’t bother me, even when I went home carrying every single word they had said.
I wanted to stand up for myself. I wanted to tell them to stop making me feel small. I wanted to look them in the eyes and let them know that they had no right to treat me that way.
But I never found the courage.
Instead, I kept quiet and hoped that one day they would get tired of bullying me.
They didn’t.
At one point, things became so unbearable that I went to my mother and asked her if I could change schools. The constant teasing had begun affecting my grades, and I was struggling to concentrate on my schoolwork.
I remember hoping she would understand how serious things had become for me.
She told me that the bullying would eventually stop.
I wanted to believe her.
Unfortunately, things only got worse.
But that’s a story for another day.
Looking back, I wish I had known then what I am slowly learning now: other people’s opinions do not determine my worth.
Back then, however, I was just a young girl trying to survive school while desperately wishing she could be someone else.
Someone prettier.
Someone more confident.
Someone who didn’t have to wonder whether she was good enough.
My first boyfriend came into my life during that period.
He was six years older than me, and we met at the local hammer mill in my neighbourhood. I had gone there with my cousin when I noticed him looking at me repeatedly. He even made comments about whatever my cousin and I were discussing.
At first, I wasn’t sure what to make of him.
Was he interested in me?
Was he simply being friendly?
Or was I imagining things because I wanted someone to find me attractive?
Eventually, we began talking, and before long, we had something that resembled a relationship.
I say resembled because we never officially defined what we were to each other. We were on and off, and things were never particularly stable between us.
Still, he was my first experience of having someone show romantic interest in me, and at the time, that meant something.
For a while, I allowed myself to enjoy it.
Then, towards the end of 2018, I decided I needed to focus on my education.
It was my senior year, and I knew I needed to concentrate if I wanted to do well in my final examinations. I couldn’t afford to let a relationship distract me from what mattered most at that point in my life.
So I made the decision to step away.
He didn’t take it well.
Eventually, we stopped talking, although I continued seeing him around the neighbourhood from time to time.
The new year arrived, and with it came the reality of being in my final year of high school.
I was nervous about what lay ahead.
I had no idea what the future held for me, but I knew one thing: I wanted to do well in school.
Love could wait.
At least, that’s what I thought.
Little did I know that my experiences with love were only beginning.
And, honestly?
I wasn’t prepared for any of them.
