It happened to me...

I was walking home this evening, through the same beaten path, and all of a sudden, out of nowhere, a memory flashed in my head of an afternoon long long ago, when I walked down the same path, sobbing all the way. Out of the blue a buried emotion stirred a little and stopped me in the tracks. Those were the days when I was happily young and comfortably innocent. Having lived through twice as many years of life now than then, I can understand the circumstances better, but the feeling is preserved as-is.

I was walking back from school to an empty home - bro usually strolled in a full ten minutes later; he had friends, you see - after a particularly rough day. A lot of people would find it hard to believe today what a quiet friendless soul I used to be in school, through most of it anyway. Anyhow, that particular day was a summer afternoon, just before vacations, and I'd been at the receiving end of some particularly bitchy behavior by a bunch of girls in my class. The sad part was, these were the girls who lived near my home and I used to hang out with them plenty in the preceding years. They were never "friends", but for a while they were friendly (plus they always needed me for notes and stuff) and I always strove hard to fit in/find approval with their group. There weren't many options beyond.

They were cool, I was not, they were clever and often mean, I always took it in my stride but the wavelength never matched. But as we grew up, they got plenty of attention and 'friends', and I became dispensable enough to be mean to. It had been going on for quite some time, and even my normally forgiving and innocent self was frustrated enough to just cut off ties with them. I had tried making new friends, and asked this particular shy 'new girl' to sit with me, who had been sidelined so far. It was fine, and I thought I'd just move on, but that particular afternoon, somehow, they all had managed to gang up against me, getting the 'new girl' on their side as well and humiliatingly left me alone.

I told them off with a brave face, but couldn't help sobbing on the way back. I felt helpless, infinitely betrayed, and terribly embittered at the 'world'. I was sure you couldn't trust most people, and that the only way to survive and be happy is to be entirely self-dependent and not let anyone come close enough to hurt you.

The vacation was a few days after this happened, and I got through most of it alone. I did try to make friends in the years after, but never got so attached and never found a lasting bond till much, much later.

The funny part is, whatever happened that one afternoon was fairly insignificant in the whole scheme of events, and I later reconciled to a civil talk-and-walk acquaintance with these girls that I still have, but still, out of the blue, it was that memory that came to me. That helpless, lonely feeling, and the vow not to let the world pull me down.

It's amazing how much of who we are and what we believe is a function of our childhoods. In fact, I have a theory that puts the onus of who we become as people, what we believe and how we behave entirely on our childhood, but more on that later. For now, I guess I'd just be glad it happened to me sooner than later.