On My Own

You know that feeling you get when you read something that really resonates with you? Its unique to each person, and for me its something I can't explain. But I can tell you I felt it when I read the draft of a friends essay. Their subject was being alone and about loners. They did an amazing job putting to words almost everything I had ever felt about being alone. Their words were put better than I could ever say them, much less write them.

Going through middle school was never easy for me. I wasn't exactly popular with the other kids. I had my friends, but the vast majority ignored me. I was fine with that, but apparently some other kids weren't ok with that. They thought I upset the natural order of their habitat. I didn't kiss up to them like the other kids did, and when they took me under their wing for a little while they expected me to play along. I still refused to play their game, and they turned on me. They couldn't understand how I liked being around my friends that liked me for who I was, or better yet, on my own. They wanted me play their game, one that they owned. I wouldn't, so their decided to cut me down. I couldn't stand their superficiality, their counting of how many "friends" you had, so I tried to ignore their system. And that system turned full force against me. They ridiculed me, saying I had no friends, I was stupid, and was worthless. For a 6th and 7th grade me, that was devastating. I let that system hurt me, even though I told myself I didn't need it. I grew accustomed to being on my own. I associated that system that I see all too often, even now, with pain. Nothing I could do would placate them, no words I could choose, no biting wit I could come up with, nothing.

They thoroughly shut me down.

And then I escaped. I came to where I am now, and I entered an entirely new system. A new system full of people who didn't know me, and couldn't judge me. I felt better for awhile. But some people in this new place that I had started to call home were part of a system like the one I had just run from. And I almost didn't see it until it was too late. But I did see it, and I tried to avoid that conflict. I tried to be on my own more, and when the people I had almost considered friends turned, it didn't hurt me nearly as much. This time, the people couldn't hurt me, so they became more reckless and bold. And they paid for it. But even in that victory I still hurt from the betrayal, even when I had seen it coming.

It took awhile to figure out that I enjoy being on my own. I learned I don't need approval from any system. I don't dislike people, I enjoy being around my friends, but I don't hang around the same people who play the game I hate. They count friends, they are quick to cut others down lest someone see their many flaws, and they all act like friends. But really, they are no different than those 6th grade kids who mock others for not playing their little game.

Reading that essay made me remember all of those things, all that pain that when I look back on it, made me who I am. When I look back on it, I see what I wanted was not to be accepted like I thought, but to be alone, away from them. And really, being alone isn't a horrible thing. The essay I read put it so much better than I can, but that sense of being on my own doesn't scare me. On my own, the only person I have to listen to is myself. On my own, I can think more clearly. On my own, there is quiet, and that is something I can live with.