“Oh, I’m sorry; that must be so lonely.”
I’m used to that sentence by now. I hear it every time I tell someone that I’m an only child. They automatically assume my life is awful because I don’t have siblings. And if I’m being honest, I used to agree with them.
Growing up, I wasn’t the most popular kid. Sure, I had friends, but at the same time, I was kind of a loner who floated around from group to group.
It also didn’t help that I was terribly shy when I was young. I was the type of shy where I couldn’t look anyone in the eye when I talked to them. I was the girl who was always in the back of the classroom, head down, refusing to speak, even to my closest friends.
I didn’t grow out of my shyness until I joined taekwondo. I know, shocking — a young shy kid who was paralyzed in fear every time they got called on joined taekwondo.
But I stuck with it all the way up until right before my freshman year in high school. While taekwondo helped me come out of my shell, I was still lonely, because at the end of the day, I returned home to just my parents, grandma and dog.
Don’t get me wrong; my parents and grandma did everything they could to give me a great life and make me happy, but that didn’t stop me from feeling like I was a weird kid or I was different from everyone else.
Like I said earlier, I was a loner who floated from group to group. It felt like every couple of years, I would be replaced by someone better with all of my friends. Multiple times, friendships ended because I started to get bullied by people I thought I could trust the most. They made me feel like something was wrong with me and I didn’t understand why.
In fourth grade, I was getting bullied by everyone I knew. I would come home with tear stains, and when my parents asked me what was wrong, I would lie to them.
This happened again when I was in eighth grade and again in my freshman year of high school.
I felt lost and alone because I didn’t really have anyone at home to talk to, and my “friends” were the cause of the pain.
But I refused to let anyone know what was truly going on in my life. I wanted to appear to be that bubbly girl that everyone assumed I was.
Those years were hard, and I continuously asked myself why everything was happening to me. What did I do to deserve getting bullied on a daily basis? Why was I stuck being alone at home?
It was difficult for a while and it took a lot of tries to get better, but now I can finally say, with a genuine smile on my face, that I’m happy.
I no longer feel like I’m an outsider. I’m no longer the weird only child with no friends. I’m the person who always has a true smile on her face with amazing friends that I never imagined myself finding.
So, to everyone who told me that my life sucked and that I was lonely, you’re wrong. I’ve never been happier.
