At the start of my senior year in college, I found myself camping in the woods with 100+ complete strangers.
Every single one of the strangers was over the moon with excitement regarding the week we had ahead of us.
I, for the life of me, could not fathom why.
As someone who is painfully shy and struggles with social anxiety, this was basically the worst situation I could have found myself in. But, alas, this trip was a big part of the final grade, and skipping out would’ve pretty much guaranteed I’d fail the class.
Which meant I would’ve had to retake it the following semester.
Which meant I would’ve had to go on this unwelcome camping trip then.
I had to do it either way. I chose sooner rather than later.
So I was in the woods with a bunch of strangers for a week. And out of the 100+, I was separated into a group of about eighteen or so.
Together, we participated in team building exercises, huddled for warmth in the snow and freezing temperatures, and brainstormed hopefully-profitable startup ideas, as business majors do.
On the outside, I was quietly trying my best, but, on the inside, I was a major grump during the first half of this trip.
There were a lot of reasons I didn’t want to be there. Other than the challenge of being surrounded by people I didn’t know, I had had a rough summer and was struggling with a lot of personal things, so my self-esteem was low and negative emotions were high.
Mostly, I felt unloved and unwanted.
With everything going on inside me, I was angry to be camping in the woods for a week for a class I didn’t even want to be a part of.
But then something magic happened.
One of the final team exercises required the entire team to be silent for the duration of the game… except for the two quietest people in the group, who were the only team members allowed to speak and instruct the team.
You guessed it: I was one of those two people.
(Not to brag, but they actually voted me as the absolute quietest person on the team.)
This exercise was memorable for two reasons: first, we set the record for completing the exercise in the fastest time. If I recall correctly, we beat it in under a minute. I actually can’t claim credit for this, though, since my genius, second-quietest teammate came up with a great plan to solve the challenge placed before us.
The second reason is only memorable to me, but it’s where the magic shows up.
After the exercise was completed and we loudly celebrated the record we set, the lot of us sat around another team’s abandoned firepit with our professor to analyze what we had just done and why we experienced the success we experienced.
Somewhere in all this talk, my gray-haired professor sitting across from me caught my brown eyes with his blue ones and abruptly halted his discussion.
I could see the gears turning in his head as I held his gaze, and suddenly, without any warning, he brought up a new discussion topic for the group: “I want to talk about Olivia.”
I froze in my seat. As I mentioned earlier, my self-esteem was so low at this point in time that I could not imagine anyone having anything good to say about me. I was unloved, unwanted, unseen. I didn’t matter. What could anyone on this team of people I had only known for a few days possibly have to say about me?
My professor didn’t know any of this, though, as he went on to say, “I’m impressed by her.”
The following twenty minutes became an impromptu discussion amongst my professor and classmates about things they’d noticed about me throughout our trip, what they appreciated about me, and how my quiet, observant nature is one of the things that makes my leadership style standout.
I could do nothing but sit there and take in their words. I couldn’t believe this was happening to me. My world flipped on its head as I realized… maybe I mattered.
This was such a magical moment for me; I’m still not fully convinced it happened.
Nobody in that moment could have imagined what they were doing for me. Those classmates, who are now some of my dearest friends, still have no idea they changed my life that day.
I had felt like I was just a little ghost in the woods, but then my friends made me feel seen.
Maybe that’s why I paired this particular letter with Yu camping in the woods.
Favorite Panel: I was going to pick the panel of food as my favorite just because I had a lot of fun drawing the little snacks, but this panel of Yu watching the sunset won me over in the end. It just feels so peaceful and comforting.
This week’s letter can be found here
Olivia Forero 