When I’m in college, I find that it’s almost impossible to find any alone time. Facing the fact that I would have only scarce moments alone was a hard realization for me. I’m extremely extroverted but if I don’t find the time to isolate myself for a moment, it starts to take a toll on my mentality. Receiving little privacy was especially hard this semester because, during the first week back, I had quite a lot weighing on my mind. This stress was due to some unfortunate events occurring in my home life. To make it worse, the poor timing of it all gave me very little time to process everything before being thrown back into a fast pace, college environment.

During my fifteen minutes, I couldn’t distract myself by watching TikTok’s, conversing with my roommate or just taking a nap. I was forced to sit with my emotions, something I had been avoiding for quite some time. Once I finally did though, I was able to examine all the reasons behind my emotional baggage. It started to become clear to me that, once I finally validated the sadness I had been feeling, my spirits began to lift and those emotions I had carried around all week suddenly became more manageable.

As hard as it may have seemed to find the time to have this one-on-one session with myself, it really was necessary. Even if I only left myself alone with my thoughts for a single minute, the time would have been just as valuable. This is a process that was honestly, quite draining, but something I should probably invest more time in for a better emotional stability.