Throughout elementary school, I longed to be friends with every single cool kid in my grade in hope that someday their popularity would rub off on me. What I didn’t realize at the time was that I had a couple of strange habits that would delay my induction into the popular boys’ club.

It seemed my desperate efforts to fit in with everyone else was only doing the opposite of what I intended in the first place. Turns out, eating the crumbs of someone else’s snack during snack time isn’t cool.

After months of trial and error, I finally discovered a talent that somehow impressed every classmate I ever had. Origami. You’d be surprised how crazy kids can go over a folded up piece of paper. Nobody in my grade really knew what origami was nor did they even know how to pronounce it. They only knew if they were friends with me, they would be rewarded with paper cranes and ninja stars.

But through my big moment of discovery, a part of me wondered why my talent for folding paper objects was the only thing people appreciated about me.

Middle school came and I learned pretty quick that kids were no longer easily impressed by my craft. It seemed as if getting people to like me had taken a leap in difficulty. I didn’t really think about it a lot before, but I started to really wonder what I was doing to deter people.

At the time, I thought the only way to make friends was to be spontaneous and funny. However, this mindset usually got me into trouble instead of helping me make friends. I think my young self may have mistaken wanting friends with wanting attention.

Although I did receive attention at home from my mother and sister, I never had a fatherly figure to guide me through my years of adolescence. Nobody was there to teach me about sports or how to ride a bike. I grew up playing with my sister’s Barbie dolls. Although there was nothing wrong with dolls, it made it harder for me to relate to other boys my age.

In one year, I went from being the cool kid who made you neat stuff to the weird kid who you didn’t want to sit next to. For the first time in my life, I got a bitter taste of what it felt like to be left out.

While I’d like to believe the pain has completely subsided, a part of it still lingers like a bruise, sore to the touch. Sometimes, I feel I have found my place at my high school. That I’ve found a place I belong to. Other days, I feel as if everyone I know suddenly loses interest in me.

Old friends move on. Family members are busy. It’s a bit hard to talk about isolation when you feel you don’t have anyone to talk to. I’ve tried distracting myself by taking interest in different hobbies. The thing is, origami isn’t as satisfying anymore.

If it can’t make you friends, what’s the point?

In a couple of months, I’ll finally be able to venture out into the world to find my place. I’ll be able to bask in the light at the end of the tunnel. I don’t know exactly where I’ll end up after high school, but I do for some reason have a feeling there’s something waiting for me outside the boundaries.

In a way, my life is kind of similar to that of a paper crane. Starting off as a delicate piece of paper, making clear and concise decisions and folds. Then, after a couple of steps in when I realize I’ve messed up, I unfold the paper and fold it a different way. But, fold the paper too many times and you kind of end up with a crinkled and damaged wreck.

Although the finished product may not be exactly what was envisioned, I know someone out there will probably still appreciate it. It’s really not about if the paper crane flaps its wings when you pull its tail, it’s about how it was created that makes it special.