From dust to dust
I always wondered why I am a bit aloof. So I sat down to think about it, and tracing events in my life that made me spend so much time in my own company. This post, honestly, is not good reading, or writing. It's just a snapshot of what i figured. It makes me wonder more now, but wonder less as well..
I grew up a lonely kid. I only had two female neighbours, whose parents insisted they play with Barbies and the like, and I always wanted to play outdoors. Indoor was for rainy days, and then I’d play with cars, guns, Lego and such. Obviously, we didn’t get along. :-) All other neighbours were boys, and much older than me. They were most happy to let me play in their games, but my brother hated that his little sister tagged along. He also ganged up against me with my elder sister, and so I spent most of my time alone, climbing trees on my own, reading and playing with all the stray animals around.
When I joined school, I made two lovely friends, who I spent all my time with. However, in about a year, lifestyle differences began to force up apart, and we faded into acquaintances too soon for my liking. The solitary trend took over once more, and lasted pretty much all the way through till I completed my schooling. Sometimes I hung out with people, and went for lunch with them and stuff, but I pretty much had only me for company. Y’see, I went to one of the snootier schools in town, and everyone was more interested in what people had with them than what they had inside. So if you didn’t sport the latest styles, you were just too plebian. Towards high school, I became a complete loser in everyone’s eyes, coz whilst they were out at discos or parties in the nights with their hip short hair, and their rich boyfriends, I was sporting hair down to my knees, and was busy learning classical dance. Sheesh… what a comparision.
End of school, I made my best friend. We went through school together, hating each others’ guts, but ended up being best friends the minute we left school. Strange, huh? But interests varied, and so we studied completely contrasting streams. So barely was I getting used to the idea of someone in my life, when we went and joined different colleges. Back to the loner phase, then. The only thing I liked about college, was the subject I’d chosen, where classes were more practical than theoretical. It exercised my brain, and brought out the best in me.
But the rest of the time, I would take off. Where people bunked classes to go for movies, go out drinking, or have clandestine meetings with boyfriends, I’d be grooming and riding horses. I graduated as the only person in my class who got along with everybody, and nobody.
Then I began to work. The kind of job I did gave me the confidence to actually face the world. Where I was hitherto shy and silent, I was now pleasant; where I was hitherto reserved, I was now more sociable. I met tons and tons of people, and actually began to build up some sort of relationship with some of them, but nothing ever progressed beyond the pleasantries. I was still alone. Oh I would go out like crazy, and my days were packed with social activity… but it was never with the same group of people.
And then of course, I shifted towns. From a place where I knew nearly everybody, to a place where I knew hardly anybody. And so my status remains quo. I am still alone.
posted by La Eposa @ 3:24 PM
