"On Being Alone."

"On Being Alone."

by:

Virgilio F. De leon Jr.MD

Was I always alone? I turned to my own inner thoughts about this now that my daughter feels the same way as she enters high school.

I remembered not caring about if I was popular or not because it was a small school and people would know about you regardless if you like them to know you or not. My daughter told us that she has been experiencing culture shock from transitioning from a small close knit school into a big one where everyone is ultra competitive or falls behind in a very big way.

She is growing up conscious of the differences in people and their statuses and she is smart to figure this all out by herself that makes me proud because I always felt that during that age I was too naive to even care.

I remembered that I was too consumed by the things that I were doing to care what people think of me. I was the leader , I was the head , I was the top dog and no one could do what I do especially during those times that I was juggling so many things but succeeding in them nonetheless. If you can call it success. 

I was alone and I did not mind. It gave me time to think.To process things. It gave me time to create new things. There were no distractions. Oh I had friends but none of them were at school because I felt that only a handful of people really did understand who I was when I was in high school.

People who cannnot categorize you always felt that you were weird and were an aberration when it comes to their normal world views and categories. And people always have that need to categorize. I belonged to neither and I belonged to all which did not sit well with everyone , I guess.Only when I entered UP Bagiuo did I understand that what set me apart was something that I can be accepted for and was the norm in College. 

I have often told those closest to me that I did enjoy college more than highschool in this regard. Personally I enjoyed high marks in high school in all of my activities when it comes to school and church but it was in College that all this creativiy would come into focus and I would find a big part of myself by being friends with the same kinds of weirdos and the diffrent kinds of weirdos that even the ultra smarts of the college was not able to label.

Weirdly enough I feel like I should tell all of this to my 12 year old. Highschool might not be the place where you find it all but it surely is a start to know who you really are and the things that you would want in the future.

I see so much of myself in her when I was at that age. That drive to do things and the need to excel.I really should not tell her some of my views because a part of me wants her to remain the same no matter what her age.

There is always time in the weekend.We will have out talks.