Among the shots and the rounds, the friends and the fun, I found a grad­u­a­tion photo framed on his shelf, a can­did shot of the Class of ’05.

Every one of my “clique” was among the faces. There were oth­ers as well, peo­ple I knew from class, even though I never talked to them. How dif­fer­ent they all looked — all prim and proper in aca­d­e­mic regalia — yet familiar.

I was the only one not in co-op, and grad­u­ated a year before every­one else. My con­vo­ca­tion was insignif­i­cant. I only went because my par­ents wanted to see me make that walk that stage, a return on their invest­ment. I don’t know who the dean of my fac­ulty was, or who handed me my diploma. I was just another num­ber in a prof­i­teer­ing insti­tu­tion. It meant nothing.

But see­ing that photo struck a chord in me.

It made me real­ize how I’ve never really fit in. How I never belonged to a group. For some rea­son, I still long for that, or, per­haps, to have had that at one point in my life. Last time it was ele­men­tary and high-school. This time it was uni­ver­sity. I don’t know why. I have my own group of friends now. Not a clique, because they don’t hang out with each other, but a mot­ley crew I’ve built through the years.

The log­i­cal side of me under­stands that it isn’t sig­nif­i­cant. That it doesn’t, and shouldn’t mat­ter. That noth­ing is more bor­ing and pedes­trian than fit­ting in.

But another part of me feels like I missed out on something.

And I don’t know if I’ll ever let that go.