My whole life I’ve been alone. All through primary school they said I was a disruption: I knew every answer to every question, I would be finishing the assignment as the class was just starting it, I had finished our book for the quarter all in one night. I was pulled out of my classes, forced into one on one sessions with the High Ability teachers. What my advisors thought was a stroke of genius, actually doomed me for the rest of my public school career. Upon witnessing that I was getting “special treatment”, my peers made a realization: I was different. This made my life pure hell as I struggled to find friends to sit with at lunch, to walk to class with, to be my partner for a project. I even sat alone at recess, as pathetic as it sounds. I was a loner.
One day, a teacher took pity on me. She handed me a copy of Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone. I was enraptured. I devoured every word I could get my hands on, finishing the entire series by first grade. I threw myself into the worlds these authors crafted, losing myself in different realities where no one else could find me. The characters I read about became my only companions. I admired their bravery, their compassion, their loyalty. I was sure that if I was born into that life, they would love and accept me, and I would experience all their adventures right alongside them. I would envision myself in those universes: casting spells, clinging to the scaly backs of dragons, soaring through midnight skies with my friends by my side. This was the life I longed for. A life full of adventure, and, most importantly, a world devoid of isolation.
Soon, though, the free time I usually spent with my nose in a book became scarce, consumed by reality. The fictitious evil wizards I would battle transformed into real evil math teachers, my fiction books left to collect dust as I focused on textbooks instead. Reality had taken a wrecking ball to my fantasies, smashing them to pieces. I picked up less and less novels, my imaginary friends started to fade, and the loneliness crept back into my chest. It was once again me versus the world. I couldn’t escape that little girl sitting alone at recess, her dream of becoming that great hero simply left in the dust, and it was all my fault.
Towards the end of my junior year, I began to realize: I didn’t need anyone else to make me happy. I became who I am all on my own. Why did I believe that loneliness was a bad thing? When I was alone, I could discover things about myself that I had never known before. I could be my true self. I didn’t have to change around my schedules to fit someone else, I didn’t have to laugh at jokes I didn’t think were funny, and, most importantly, I didn’t have to lie about who I was to anyone, not even myself. I learned to love myself for who I was, not for who I was trying to be. Solitude is what I have always known, and it became a comfort to me, instead of the insecurity it had always been.
With this newfound viewpoint, I began to try different things I never would have before for fear of judgement from my peers: a new sense of style, new ways of doing my hair, new hobbies that I turned out to be pretty good at. The term “loner” didn’t have to have that negative connotation I had believed it had my entire life. While I still haven’t achieved the fantasy lifestyle eight year old me so desperately desired, I finally have the tool I require most to traverse the wild adventures ahead of me: self love.