I have always been the “why” kind of kid, sometimes ad nauseam. Especially when I looked at maps, questions materialized in my head. Why are certain borders straight and others squiggly? Why are countries their respective sizes? How did lines on paper influence so much? Behind each question: a story. Maybe there had been 1,000 years of battles here, or a mountain range there. No matter the question, the answer was always found in the lines. The only way to know why, was to continue to scour and question. With time, the names of the cities, states, and countries subtly etched themselves in my brain. I felt more comfortable knowing where things were in relation to each other. I slowly filled in my own mental map of the world.

Though borders inspired both intrigue and answers on paper, the lines were far less helpful in the social sense. I find it hard to look back on my middle school experience. This is quite uncharacteristic of me; I pride myself on being able to look at my bad times and at least learn from them. The problem with middle school was a plague of loneliness. I still don’t enjoy the feeling I get reflecting on my lack of friends at the time. Every friend group was established, members signified by a group chat. It was horribly simple: either you’re in or you aren’t. People didn’t take kindly to newcomers. All the friend groups had been settled since preschool, but I wanted to survey the field and find other like-minded individuals. With each failed attempt, I left a little bit of my curious self behind in favor of conformity. 

I knew I wasn’t in a good mental space, and thankfully, others did too. I found refuge in my favorite teacher’s classroom, Mr. Mohan. Each day after social studies class, I would excitedly hurry to the front of the room with my laptop in hand. He would have already written a  late note so he and I could play the daily puzzle in the game Globle. The game revolves around identifying a mystery country each day using hot and cold hints. The player enters the name of a country and it pops up on the globe, each guess appearing in a darker shade as it approaches the answer. At first, Google was a heavy crutch, but as time went on, names became familiar. We would chat about the country after finally guessing it. Sometimes he learned, but most of the time I did. I sought sanctuary in Mr. Mohan’s room. Every day, there was a consistent five minute span I’d look forward to. To close out the year, each “team,” or cohort of students with the same core teachers, held an awards ceremony. Mr. Mohan was in charge of selecting recipients of the “Collins Award for History.” I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t proud to hold that poster with my name on it. Mr. M always went the extra step to make me feel alright. The picture he chose for the award was a map of the United States at night. 

High school provided what I had been looking for in middle school: a reshuffling of the groups. New faces meant new opportunities to connect with similar people. In a subconscious effort to block out my middle school years, I didn’t speak to Mr. Mohan as frequently as I would’ve liked to. On April 3, 2024, he was tragically killed in a car accident. The loss hit me hard. Feeling lost in the light of such a tragedy, I returned to my maps. I had developed a foggy understanding of the globe before, but this time I needed clarity. I would be given the name of a country and then attempted to locate it on the map. After doing so consistently for a week, I could do all 193 United Nation Member-states in six minutes and three seconds. The certainty of the map provided a necessary crutch during a time of despair.

The maps had unexpected side effects. Upon seeing maps on my computer, others around me shared that they, too, loved playing geography games. The pattern hasn’t stopped since. Anytime I pull up my map games, someone leans over and wants in on the action. In the past, I had forced my friendships past natural boundaries, possible but unnatural. I was better off partaking in the things I already loved. The right people seemed to be there too. The very borders I studied eventually melted the social ones that had plagued me so much in the past.