today, my best friends and i were chatting about a person we went to school with. for some reason, the conversation made my stomach tie itself into knots — and for a little bit, i wasn’t sure why. they were much “cooler” than me: a quintessential, all-american popular kid who (frankly) did not give me the time of day in high school. not saying i was at the bottom of the inevitable high school food chain, but i wasn’t exactly the leader of the student section, seated on prom court, or anyone’s first choice in gym class.

anyway, i struggled to see past the fact that this person was not particularly nice to me in the carpeted halls of my high school. or even, when i saw them out in public a few years after graduation. why did i still care? this person has probably grown so much since high school, since college. why could i still only see them as the person they were when they were 16?

the after-high-school-phase of your life is weird. you’ll notice, thanks to social media, that people change. the once conventionally popular folks sometimes come into their own: shedding that old high school skin, expressing their once-stifled passions, and growing into a new human. these people probably wish that they were more themselves in high school: maybe they think that they would’ve been happier not pretending.

i can’t speak for everyone who wasn’t the coolest in high school, but i’ll admit something embarrassing: sometimes, i wish that i hadn’t been myself in high school. looking back, there are times that i wish i didn’t wear my knee socks and wore american eagle instead. times i wish that i traded in my mock trial suit for a cheering uniform, or swap my musical rehearsals to continue playing soccer. there are even moments where i wish i didn’t try so hard in english class and, instead, tried harder to fit in.

not fitting in when you’re young sticks with you. in most spaces, you’ll find it hard to feel welcome, even if the people are as kind as can be. it’s uncomfortable. it’s weird. and a lot of times, people don’t understand it.

i consider myself someone who really doesn’t care what most people think of me. at 22, when i meet someone new, i am unabashedly myself. what you see is what you get. i’m not trying to impress anyone. for a lot of people, that’s probably the opposite: it’s human nature to put on your best face when you’re meeting someone new, to get people to like you based off of a first impression. and when you’re around the community you grew up in, you don’t feel like you have to pretend: you can be you, and feel accepted for that.

that is not the case for me, and there are days i wish it was. i wish i could walk into a hometown bar and feel comfortable with the people i went to high school with. i wish i could look at the people from my hometown and respect how much they’ve grown. i wish that being uncool in high school still didn’t bother me when i’m around people who were cool. but it does.

on some level, i will always be itching to fit in because i never have.

it’s a work in progress, healing adolescent wounds. they’re deep. when someone cuts you when you’re young, there’s no amount of social media stitches to heal it. and every time you feel as though you don’t fit in — at work, at a party, or even in your friendships — it’s just adding salt to the cut. and you’ll wonder if it’ll ever scab over, and flake off.

as much as i’ve grown in my life, there will always be that part of me: that 16-year-old, film-obsessed girl wearing knee socks — the one with big dreams to write words for a living — will always be there. she’s there when i run into people i went to school with at my hometown starbucks, when i see a girl i went to school with in the city, when the boys who were popular in high school show up in line in front of me for a bar. that part of me will never feel comfortable or accepted. that chip on my shoulder will be there. that wound will be salted.

today i realized that i am the bully when it comes to my high school self. i am the one who is mean to 16 year old me, not the people who literally do not care about me who i went to high school with over five years ago. years and years later, nobody gives a fuck about school. seriously. i am reminded that i am the only one who continues to salt that wound. i’m the one who is bitter about not fitting in. in the words of taylor swift, i’m the problem, it’s me. and i hope someday, i’ll be able to find peace in the fact that i’ll never really fit in.

high school me was cool. she was weird, but she was cool. she is, and will always be, me. and although i get frustrated by the fact that she could’ve at least tried to be a little cooler — she made me who i am now. and i will always love her for that: knee socks and all.

every day, i focus on that piece of myself. i want to quell her anxieties and let her know that it’s okay that we didn’t fit in — we don’t need to fit in. we never needed to. nobody can ever validate you. nobody can ever make you feel accepted but you.