The Loner Child

I've never wished I'd had children, but I like to watch them. I wonder about things that must go through a parent's head as they watch their own children growing up, coming to terms with their own personal selves and the world around them. I wonder, for example, what it would be like to be the parent of a loner child. Would I feel a sense of tragedy as I watched my child sitting alone while other kids formed bonds with others their age? Would I be able to resist the urge to push my child into the group, *just in case* he/she was feeling lonely and simply too shy to make the first step by themself?

I was a loner child. Some of my loveliest memories are of times when I was completely by myself, sitting under a bush, or high up in a tree, or on the front steps of my childhood home. I recall that my mother often asked me "Are you sad? You're not sad right?" I imagine she must have seen me sitting there, and become concerned because I presented such a lonely picture.

My father too, voiced his concern. I remember especially, one afternoon when I was about ten, a girl from school surprised me with an unexpected visit on a saturday afternoon. Most kids would be pleased to have a friend drop in on them on a summery day, but I wasn't. I wanted to be alone. I invited her in, and grudgingly played with her for a while, but I couldn't get into the spirit of things. I couldn't stop my resentment from building over the fact that I'd wanted to spend yet another day by myself. Finally she asked me if I hated her. "You don't seem very happy that I'm here." she said very sadly.

I decided to be honest. I told her I didn't hate her, but I wished she hadn't come. It was nothing personal.... She let herself out, and I watched her walk dejectedly across our front yard toward her house. My father had heard our conversation, and caught up with me in the kitchen. With tears in his eyes, he told me I might be sorry one day. "If you keep this up" he said with real sadness, "You might find yourself without anyone, and then you might be very, very lonely." I sensed he might be speaking from experience. He had his own loner tendencies.

I have a wonderful memory of my father at work. He had his own business, laying floors and countertops. Sometimes my sisters and I joined him when mom needed a break from us. We would play there among the debris of the partially build house where dad was installing the flooring. When he announced his lunch break, we watched him open his large metal lunch box and take out the thermos. Unscrewing the cap, he poured steaming coffee into it, and set it on the floor. He unwrapped his sandwiches from their wax paper wrapping and spread the wrapping over his knees as he sat on the floor, leaning against the wall with his legs stretched out straight in front of him. He always asked us to leave him alone while he ate. He enjoyed this time of solitude, listening to Jack Webster on the radio. My sisters and I respected his wish, and played quietly in the adjoining room. I liked to sneak up occasionally and peek in on him. He presented such a picture of contentment, my heart went out to him. This image is one of my most endearing memories of my father.

I remember that I sometimes tried to fit in among kids my age, and failed every time. It's as though I didn't have some key ingredient that would allow me to be naturally social. It was a job for me, to be part of a group. It required concentration. And always, always I missed one or two important steps.

I remember a few times that I might have appeared successful. Once in kindergarten, the teacher was leading my classmates and me in a singalong. She'd set me up on a high countertop for some reason (people were forever lifting me up, I think because I was so tiny). Anyway I sat there by myself, looking down on the heads of the other kids. Then a few other little girls clambered up to join me. They seemed to think I was lucky for having this special seat. They seemed almost to admire me, much to my amazement. As we sang with the rest of the class, one of the girls on the counter with me began to move side to side along with the music. Soon the entire row was moving in unison, me along with the rest. My nervous little heart pounded as I struggled to appear natural - here I was part of a group! We were set apart from the rest of the class, we were cooler than those on the floor, I couldn't believe I was here among them! The little girl beside me caught my eye and beamed at me "Isn't this fun!" she whispered. I remember thinking "They must think I'm just like them!" It was a wonderful, but terrifying experience. I filed it away in my memory, and relived it many times over - the day I was part of a group.

Yet I didn't follow through. I didn't get to know any of those girls, as they went on to do during the rest of the school year. Instead I cherished the memory of that one afternoon, as a single, exhilerating experience. I didn't follow through because I worried that if I allowed these girls to know me, they would discover they'd made a mistake in thinking I was their equal. Better to remain unknown. Better to not tarnish my memory of being one of them, on the counter that day.

Our neighbourhood had several families with children my age. I played easily with all of those kids. With them, somehow, it was natural for me to drop in at their homes, or to invite them to play in my yard. We'd been introduced as very young children, by our parents. They were like relatives to me. Somehow I was able to act naturally with these kids, especially when we were all younger. Then things began to change between us. They cultivated new friendships in school, and I was left behind. They didn't reject me - I rejected them. When I discovered they had other friendships, I was reminded that I was different, and I became insecure.

I did make a few friends over the years that I went to elementary school. Never more than one at a time, because the idea of having more, felt overwhelming. There wasn't enough of me to go around. It was difficult enough, keeping a single friendship, such as it was. I remember that I would go through a period of bliss, knowing that I had a friend. "I'm just like others!" I thought to myself. "I have a friend just like the rest of the kids in my class." Then I would discover that the other kids had several friends at once. They visited each other at their homes, and they went places together. After school they joined each other to play, while I said goodbye to my single friend at the schoolyard gate and went home by myself. Here I had thought I was finally doing it correctly, only to discover that there was so much more to the picture.

I remember when I realised for the first time, that my friendship was miniscule compared to the deepening relationships that other kids were cultivating. I had thought that seeing my friend in school, and playing with her at recess, was all there was to it. Now I saw that there were all these other layers I had never explored. My friendship was superficial compared to those of other kids. I didn't feel good about it any longer.

Instead of taking this new lesson in social behavior, and using it as a guide as to what I should do next ... instead of imitating the other kids and inviting my friend over to play, I became afraid. I was afraid to deepen my friendship, I didn't seem to know how. The whole concept was completely foreign to me. And so I set about sabotaging the entire thing. I did little mean things wherever the opportunity arose, and soon my friendship was over. I felt sad, and disappointed, and lonesome, but more than all those things, I felt relief. I settled more deeply into my own strange skin, and remembered the lesson when I began another friendship with another little girl in school. Each time, throughout my childhood, I followed the same pattern. With each new friendship's death, I cemented my belief that everyone would reject me in time, never realising that I was, in fact, making it impossible for them to do anything else. Yet, had I realised it, I don't believe I would, or could, have done differently. I was simply more at home being alone, than with others.

I often became so immersed in my own inner world, I completely forgot that I was surrounded by other children. In kindergarten, I played by myself, in the area set up as a playhouse. I bustled around the play kitchen, cooking meals and serving them to my imaginary husband. I tucked a doll into the buggy and walked her slowly around the classroom. All the while, my classmates were playing in groups, yet their noise hardly penetrated. I was alone, within, and without. I remember once when I suddenly realised there were other kids in the room, when their laughter grew loud enough to sink in through my own thoughts. For a moment I stopped in my solitary play, and watched them. It felt like a revelation somehow, that there were others there in the room with me. I'd forgotten all about them.

Sometimes I became lonely, and wondered how it had happened that I had no friends. I would try to fix things, in my own clumsy way. But it seemed too late somehow. I had become an outsider. The other kids in school had now been friends for several years, and come to view me as the girl unknown. I was a familiar face as we moved up the grades together, nothing more. I didn't understand that if I was to break into a group, I must start at the beginning, friendships could not be started in the middle of things - I couldn't just suddenly be one of them. But I didn't know this. I didn't see that I must start in on the ground floor and patiently build the friendship over time. I had so much catching up to do, I felt overwhelmed anyway. I'd lost so much time. I learned to pretend I wasn't lonely. I created imaginary friends. Yet even these, I kept at arm's length. Instead of pretending my imaginary friends were kids with whom I played, I imagined these "friends" to be simply watching me. I imagined the entire world, all of humanity, watched me as I moved through my days, playing alone. That's all they did. They watched me, and they accepted me, but they kept their distance ... I kept them at a distance, never allowing them to come too close.

I struggled over my loner tendencies for years and years. Only recently am I able to accept myself as I am. I am a loner, and it's okay. Still I would hate to watch my own child go through what I did. I believe it would break my heart.