Childhood can be a bumpy ride... even at the best of times.
To be honest, I don't actually have that many memories of it but I do know that I spent most of my school years generally being regarded as "that weird kid in the corner."
I can look back at those years from my current vantage point of many decades later and come up with all kinds of rational analyses as for why things were the way they were. Maybe I come up with these because I'm trying to cut the 8- to 15-year-old me a little bit of slack.
I suppose children can be kind, and loving, and supportive but for the most part it seemed to me that children could be rather brutal and even cruel.
I learned at an early age that there are many things that can make you be perceived to be "weird." And being perceived as weird is likely to expose you to getting picked on.
I did my best to not let other people see how weird I was simply by staying in some mostly unseen corner and largely minding my own business to the greatest possible extent. I figured if I could just come across as a "book nerd" it would cover some of my other weird quirks and interests.
Looking back, I really didn't have any fears of most of the games and social situations relating to grade school... but I sincerely didn't have any interest in them and found it pretty much impossible to pretend that I liked or even saw the point of what was happening. Which — I suppose — is basically admitting that I had no interest in the typical childhood socialization process. Too much pretending and posing.
The one consistent memory I have from the entire period of about age 6 through age 18 was always wishing that people would just leave me alone.
It's funny how the world tends to associate the desire for solitude with being boring. Thankfully I had a very low need to fit in... although I definitely tried, primarily in service of avoiding being picked on.
It's funny how our lives are shaped!
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2026.09.03 01:52 PDT
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